On the Generalization Capability of Temporal Graph Learning Algorithms: Theoretical Insights and a Simpler Method

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Cong, Weilin, Kang, Jian, Tong, Hanghang, Mahdavi, Mehrdad
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Cong, Weilin
Kang, Jian
Tong, Hanghang
Mahdavi, Mehrdad
author_facet Cong, Weilin
Kang, Jian
Tong, Hanghang
Mahdavi, Mehrdad
contents Temporal Graph Learning (TGL) has become a prevalent technique across diverse real-world applications, especially in domains where data can be represented as a graph and evolves over time. Although TGL has recently seen notable progress in algorithmic solutions, its theoretical foundations remain largely unexplored. This paper aims at bridging this gap by investigating the generalization ability of different TGL algorithms (e.g., GNN-based, RNN-based, and memory-based methods) under the finite-wide over-parameterized regime. We establish the connection between the generalization error of TGL algorithms and "the number of layers/steps" in the GNN-/RNN-based TGL methods and "the feature-label alignment (FLA) score", where FLA can be used as a proxy for the expressive power and explains the performance of memory-based methods. Guided by our theoretical analysis, we propose Simplified-Temporal-Graph-Network, which enjoys a small generalization error, improved overall performance, and lower model complexity. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Our theoretical findings and proposed algorithm offer essential insights into TGL from a theoretical standpoint, laying the groundwork for the designing practical TGL algorithms in future studies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_16387
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Generalization Capability of Temporal Graph Learning Algorithms: Theoretical Insights and a Simpler Method
Cong, Weilin
Kang, Jian
Tong, Hanghang
Mahdavi, Mehrdad
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Temporal Graph Learning (TGL) has become a prevalent technique across diverse real-world applications, especially in domains where data can be represented as a graph and evolves over time. Although TGL has recently seen notable progress in algorithmic solutions, its theoretical foundations remain largely unexplored. This paper aims at bridging this gap by investigating the generalization ability of different TGL algorithms (e.g., GNN-based, RNN-based, and memory-based methods) under the finite-wide over-parameterized regime. We establish the connection between the generalization error of TGL algorithms and "the number of layers/steps" in the GNN-/RNN-based TGL methods and "the feature-label alignment (FLA) score", where FLA can be used as a proxy for the expressive power and explains the performance of memory-based methods. Guided by our theoretical analysis, we propose Simplified-Temporal-Graph-Network, which enjoys a small generalization error, improved overall performance, and lower model complexity. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Our theoretical findings and proposed algorithm offer essential insights into TGL from a theoretical standpoint, laying the groundwork for the designing practical TGL algorithms in future studies.
title On the Generalization Capability of Temporal Graph Learning Algorithms: Theoretical Insights and a Simpler Method
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16387