Graph Neural Networks for Tabular Data Learning: A Survey with Taxonomy and Directions

In this survey, we dive into Tabular Data Learning (TDL) using Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), a domain where deep learning-based approaches have increasingly shown superior performance in both classification and regression tasks compared to traditional methods. The survey highlights a critical gap in deep neural TDL methods: the underrepresentation of latent correlations among data instances and feature values. GNNs, with their innate capability to model intricate relationships and interactions between diverse elements of tabular data, have garnered significant interest and application across various TDL domains. Our survey provides a systematic review of the methods involved in designing and implementing GNNs for TDL (GNN4TDL). It encompasses a detailed investigation into the foundational aspects and an overview of GNN-based TDL methods, offering insights into their evolving landscape. We present a comprehensive taxonomy focused on constructing graph structures and representation learning within GNN-based TDL methods. In addition, the survey examines various training plans, emphasizing the integration of auxiliary tasks to enhance the effectiveness of instance representations. A critical part of our discussion is dedicated to the practical application of GNNs across a spectrum of GNN4TDL scenarios, demonstrating their versatility and impact. Lastly, we discuss the limitations and propose future research directions, aiming to spur advancements in GNN4TDL. This survey serves as a resource for researchers and practitioners, offering a thorough understanding of GNNs' role in revolutionizing TDL and pointing towards future innovations in this promising area.

TabGSL: Graph Structure Learning for Tabular Data Prediction

This work presents a novel approach to tabular data prediction leveraging graph structure learning and graph neural networks. Despite the prevalence of tabular data in real-world applications, traditional deep learning methods often overlook the potentially valuable associations between data instances. Such associations can offer beneficial insights for classification tasks, as instances may exhibit similar patterns of correlations among features and target labels. This information can be exploited by graph neural networks, necessitating robust graph structures. However, existing studies primarily focus on improving graph structure from noisy data, largely neglecting the possibility of deriving graph structures from tabular data. We present a novel solution, Tabular Graph Structure Learning (TabGSL), to enhance tabular data prediction by simultaneously learning instance correlation and feature interaction within a unified framework. This is achieved through a proposed graph contrastive learning module, along with transformer-based feature extractor and graph neural network. Comprehensive experiments conducted on 30 benchmark tabular datasets demonstrate that TabGSL markedly outperforms both tree-based models and recent deep learning-based tabular models. Visualizations of the learned instance embeddings further substantiate the effectiveness of TabGSL.