Hyperedge Modelling in Hypergraph Neural Networks via Constrained Densest Overlapping Subgraphs- MSc Thesis Defense by: Mehrad Soltani

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 - 11:30

The School of Computer Science is pleased to present…

Hyperedge Modelling in Hypergraph Neural Networks via Constrained Densest Overlapping Subgraphs
MSc Thesis Defense by: Mehrad Soltani

 

Date: Tuesday, May 6th, 2025

Time:  11:30 AM

Location: Essex Hall, Room 122

 

Abstract:

The enhanced performance of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) has attracted significant attention in various research fields. However, in many real-world applications, the inherent relationships among objects in higher dimensions are typically not captured by standard graphs since edges connect only two vertices. Hypergraphs, instead, tackle this limitation by introducing a hyperedge that can connect an arbitrary number of nodes. This raises a key question about the information loss caused by the limitations of graph-based representations. The similarity between the definitions of subgraphs and hyperedges inspired us to introduce the Densest Overlapping Subgraphs (DOS) as a primary framework used to convert a graph into a hypergraph.

In this work, we propose to address this problem by proposing an information retrieval framework designed to transform graph structures into hypergraph representations. This framework leverages the concept of DOS as a key method for constructing hyperedges, thereby taking advantage of the richer representational capacity of hypergraphs, yielding enhanced graph machine learning tasks. Preliminary results on synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate that our approach consistently yields improved performance over traditional graph-based methods while offering flexible control over subgraph size, density, and overlap.

 

Keywords: Hypergraphs, hypergraph neural networks, hyperedge generation
 
Thesis Committee:

Internal Reader: Dr. Dan Wu      

External Reader: Dr. Ning Zhang               

Advisor: Dr. Luis Rueda

Chair: Dr. Muhammad Asaduzzaman

 

Registration Link (only MAC students need to pre-register)