Path Aggregation Model for Attributed Network Embedding with a Smart Random Walk

Network embedding has attracted a surge of attention recently. In this field, how to preserve high-order proximity has long been a difficult task. Graph convolutional network (GCN) and random walk-based approaches can preserve high-order proximity to a certain extent. However, they partially concentrate on the aggregation process and sampling process respectively. Path aggregation methods combine the merits of GCN and random walk, and thus can preserve more high-order information and achieve better performance. However, path aggregation framework has not been applied in attributed network embedding yet. In this paper, we propose a path aggregation model for attributed network embedding, with two main contributions. First, we claim that there always exists implicit edge weight in networks, and design a tweaked random walk algorithm to sample paths accordingly. Second, we propose a path aggregation framework dealing with both nodes and attributes. Extensive experimental results show that our proposal outperforms the cutting-edge baselines on downstream tasks, such as node clustering, node classification, and link prediction.