Simplifying Graph Convolutional Networks

Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) and their variants have experienced significant attention and have become the de facto methods for learning graph representations. GCNs derive inspiration primarily from recent deep learning approaches, and as a result, may inherit unnecessary complexity and redundant computation. In this paper, we reduce this excess complexity through successively removing nonlinearities and collapsing weight matrices between consecutive layers. We theoretically analyze the resulting linear model and show that it corresponds to a fixed low-pass filter followed by a linear classifier. Notably, our experimental evaluation demonstrates that these simplifications do not negatively impact accuracy in many downstream applications. Moreover, the resulting model scales to larger datasets, is naturally interpretable, and yields up to two orders of magnitude speedup over FastGCN.

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Results from the Paper


Task Dataset Model Metric Name Metric Value Global Rank Uses Extra
Training Data
Result Benchmark
Text Classification 20NEWS SGC Accuracy 88.5 # 4
Text Classification 20NEWS SGCN Accuracy 88.5 # 4
Node Classification Chameleon (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 64.86 ± 1.81 # 17
Node Classification Chameleon (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 62.67 ± 2.41 # 24
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Chameleon(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 64.86 ± 1.81 # 15
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Chameleon(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 62.67 ± 2.41 # 21
Node Classification CiteSeer (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 79.66 ± 0.75 # 24
Node Classification CiteSeer (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 80.75 ± 1.15 # 21
Node Classification Cora (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 85.48 ± 1.48 # 26
Node Classification Cora (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 85.12 ± 1.64 # 28
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Cornell (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 70.98 ± 8.39 # 30
Node Classification Cornell (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 70.98 ± 8.39 # 32
Node Classification Cornell (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 72.62 ± 9.92 # 30
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Cornell (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 72.62 ± 9.92 # 28
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Deezer-Europe SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 59.73±0.12 # 24
Node Classification Film (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 25.26 ± 1.18 # 37
Node Classification Film (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 28.81 ± 1.11 # 36
Node Classification genius SGC 2-hop Accuracy 82.10 ± 0.14 # 20
Node Classification genius SGC 1-hop Accuracy 82.36 ± 0.37 # 19
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs genius SGC 2-hop 1:1 Accuracy 82.10 ± 0.14 # 22
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs genius SGC 1-hop 1:1 Accuracy 82.36 ± 0.37 # 21
Graph Regression Lipophilicity SGC RMSE 0.998 # 10
Sentiment Analysis MR SGCN Accuracy 75.9 # 17
Sentiment Analysis MR SGC Accuracy 75.9 # 17
Node Property Prediction ogbn-papers100M SGC Test Accuracy 0.6329 ± 0.0019 # 18
Validation Accuracy 0.6648 ± 0.0020 # 18
Number of params 144044 # 18
Ext. data No # 1
Text Classification Ohsumed SGCN Accuracy 68.5 # 3
Text Classification Ohsumed SGC Accuracy 68.5 # 3
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Penn94 SGC 1-hop 1:1 Accuracy 66.79 ± 0.27 # 27
Node Classification Penn94 SGC 2-hop Accuracy 76.09 ± 0.45 # 20
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Penn94 SGC 2-hop 1:1 Accuracy 76.09 ± 0.45 # 21
Node Classification Penn94 SGC 1-hop Accuracy 66.79 ± 0.27 # 26
Node Classification PubMed (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 85.36 ± 0.52 # 34
Node Classification PubMed (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 85.5 ± 0.76 # 33
Text Classification R52 SGCN Accuracy 94.0 # 5
Text Classification R52 SGC Accuracy 94.0 # 5
Text Classification R8 SGCN Accuracy 97.2 # 14
Text Classification R8 SGC Accuracy 97.2 # 14
Skeleton Based Action Recognition SBU / SBU-Refine SGCConv Accuracy 94.0% # 7
Node Classification Squirrel (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 41.25 ± 1.4 # 27
Node Classification Squirrel (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 47.62 ± 1.27 # 18
Relation Extraction TACRED C-SGC F1 67.0 # 34
Node Classification Texas (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 83.28 ± 5.43 # 23
Node Classification Texas (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 81.31 ± 3.3 # 28
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Texas(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 81.31 ± 3.3 # 26
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Texas(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 83.28 ± 5.43 # 21
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs twitch-gamers SGC 1-hop 1:1 Accuracy 58.97 ± 0.19 # 26
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs twitch-gamers SGC 2-hop 1:1 Accuracy 59.94 ± 0.21 # 25
Node Classification Wisconsin (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 74.75 ± 2.89 # 28
Node Classification Wisconsin (60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 70.38 ± 2.85 # 30
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Wisconsin(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-1 1:1 Accuracy 70.38 ± 2.85 # 27
Node Classification on Non-Homophilic (Heterophilic) Graphs Wisconsin(60%/20%/20% random splits) SGC-2 1:1 Accuracy 74.75 ± 2.89 # 25

Methods