Graph topology inference benchmarks for machine learning
This work addresses the challenge of validating and comparing graph inference methods for researchers in signal processing and machine learning, but it is incremental as it focuses on benchmarking rather than new algorithms.
The authors tackled the problem of comparing graph inference algorithms by introducing publicly available benchmarks designed to evaluate their relative merits and limitations, and they contrasted prominent techniques in the literature.
Graphs are nowadays ubiquitous in the fields of signal processing and machine learning. As a tool used to express relationships between objects, graphs can be deployed to various ends: I) clustering of vertices, II) semi-supervised classification of vertices, III) supervised classification of graph signals, and IV) denoising of graph signals. However, in many practical cases graphs are not explicitly available and must therefore be inferred from data. Validation is a challenging endeavor that naturally depends on the downstream task for which the graph is learnt. Accordingly, it has often been difficult to compare the efficacy of different algorithms. In this work, we introduce several ease-to-use and publicly released benchmarks specifically designed to reveal the relative merits and limitations of graph inference methods. We also contrast some of the most prominent techniques in the literature.