Graph neural link predictor based on cycle structure

Abstract Currently, the link prediction algorithms primarily focus on studying the interaction between nodes based on chain structure and star structure, which predominantly rely on low‐order structural information and do not explore the multivariate interactions between nodes from the perspective of higher‐order structural information present in the network. The cycle structure is a higher‐order structure that lies between the star and clique structures, where all nodes within the same cycle can interact with each other, even in the absence of direct edges. If a node is encompassed by multiple cycles, it indicates that the node interacts and associates with a greater number of nodes in the network, and it means the node is more important in the network to some extent. Furthermore, if two nodes are included in multiple cycles, it signifies the two nodes are more likely to be connected. Therefore, firstly, a multi‐information fusion node importance algorithm based on the cycle structure information is proposed, which integrates both high‐order and low‐order structural information. Secondly, the obtained integrated structure information and node feature information is regarded as the input features, a two‐channel graph neural network model is designed to learn the cycle structure information. Then, the cycle structure information is utilised for the task of link prediction, and a graph neural link predictor with multi‐information interactions based on the cycle structure is developed. Finally, extensive experimental validation and analysis show that the node ranking result of the proposed node importance index is more consistent with the actual situation, the proposed graph neural network model can effectively learn the cycle structure information, and using higher‐order structural information—cycle information proves to significantly enhance the overall link prediction performance.