A multi-type transferable method for missing link prediction in heterogeneous social networks

Heterogeneous social networks, which are characterized by diverse interaction types, have resulted in new challenges for missing link prediction. Most deep learning models tend to capture type-specific features to maximize the prediction performances on specific link types. However, the types of missing links are uncertain in heterogeneous social networks; this restricts the prediction performances of existing deep learning models. To address this issue, we propose a multi-type transferable method (𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑀) for missing link prediction in heterogeneous social networks, which exploits adversarial neural networks to remain robust against type differences. It comprises a generative predictor and a discriminative classifier. The generative predictor can extract link representations and predict whether the unobserved link is a missing link. To generalize well for different link types to improve the prediction performance, it attempts to deceive the discriminative classifier by learning transferable feature representations among link types. In order not to be deceived, the discriminative classifier attempts to accurately distinguish link types, which indirectly helps the generative predictor judge whether the learned feature representations are transferable among link types. Finally, the integrated 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑀 is constructed on this minimax two-player game between the generative predictor and discriminative classifier to predict missing links based on transferable feature representations among link types. Extensive experiments show that the proposed 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑀 can outperform state-of-the-art baselines for missing link prediction in heterogeneous social networks.