Neural Graph Collaborative Filtering

Learning vector representations (aka. embeddings) of users and items lies at the core of modern recommender systems. Ranging from early matrix factorization to recently emerged deep learning based methods, existing efforts typically obtain a user's (or an item's) embedding by mapping from pre-existing features that describe the user (or the item), such as ID and attributes. We argue that an inherent drawback of such methods is that, the collaborative signal, which is latent in user-item interactions, is not encoded in the embedding process. As such, the resultant embeddings may not be sufficient to capture the collaborative filtering effect. In this work, we propose to integrate the user-item interactions -- more specifically the bipartite graph structure -- into the embedding process. We develop a new recommendation framework Neural Graph Collaborative Filtering (NGCF), which exploits the user-item graph structure by propagating embeddings on it. This leads to the expressive modeling of high-order connectivity in user-item graph, effectively injecting the collaborative signal into the embedding process in an explicit manner. We conduct extensive experiments on three public benchmarks, demonstrating significant improvements over several state-of-the-art models like HOP-Rec and Collaborative Memory Network. Further analysis verifies the importance of embedding propagation for learning better user and item representations, justifying the rationality and effectiveness of NGCF. Codes are available at https://github.com/xiangwang1223/neural_graph_collaborative_filtering.Comment: SIGIR 2019; the latest version of NGCF paper, which is distinct from the version published in ACM Digital Librar

A Survey of Imbalanced Learning on Graphs: Problems, Techniques, and Future Directions

Graphs represent interconnected structures prevalent in a myriad of real-world scenarios. Effective graph analytics, such as graph learning methods, enables users to gain profound insights from graph data, underpinning various tasks including node classification and link prediction. However, these methods often suffer from data imbalance, a common issue in graph data where certain segments possess abundant data while others are scarce, thereby leading to biased learning outcomes. This necessitates the emerging field of imbalanced learning on graphs, which aims to correct these data distribution skews for more accurate and representative learning outcomes. In this survey, we embark on a comprehensive review of the literature on imbalanced learning on graphs. We begin by providing a definitive understanding of the concept and related terminologies, establishing a strong foundational understanding for readers. Following this, we propose two comprehensive taxonomies: (1) the problem taxonomy, which describes the forms of imbalance we consider, the associated tasks, and potential solutions; (2) the technique taxonomy, which details key strategies for addressing these imbalances, and aids readers in their method selection process. Finally, we suggest prospective future directions for both problems and techniques within the sphere of imbalanced learning on graphs, fostering further innovation in this critical area.Comment: The collection of awesome literature on imbalanced learning on graphs: https://github.com/Xtra-Computing/Awesome-Literature-ILoG

Search Efficient Binary Network Embedding

Traditional network embedding primarily focuses on learning a dense vector representation for each node, which encodes network structure and/or node content information, such that off-the-shelf machine learning algorithms can be easily applied to the vector-format node representations for network analysis. However, the learned dense vector representations are inefficient for large-scale similarity search, which requires to find the nearest neighbor measured by Euclidean distance in a continuous vector space. In this paper, we propose a search efficient binary network embedding algorithm called BinaryNE to learn a sparse binary code for each node, by simultaneously modeling node context relations and node attribute relations through a three-layer neural network. BinaryNE learns binary node representations efficiently through a stochastic gradient descent based online learning algorithm. The learned binary encoding not only reduces memory usage to represent each node, but also allows fast bit-wise comparisons to support much quicker network node search compared to Euclidean distance or other distance measures. Our experiments and comparisons show that BinaryNE not only delivers more than 23 times faster search speed, but also provides comparable or better search quality than traditional continuous vector based network embedding methods