On Inductive–Transductive Learning With Graph Neural Networks

Many real–world domains involve information naturally represented by graphs, where nodes denote basic patterns while edges stand for relationships among them. The graph neural network (GNN) is a machine learning model capable of directly managing graph–structured data. In the original framework, GNNs are inductively trained, adapting their parameters based on a supervised learning environment. However, GNNs can also take advantage of transductive learning, thanks to the natural way they make information flow and spread across the graph, using relationships among patterns. In this paper, we propose a mixed inductive–transductive GNN model, study its properties and introduce an experimental strategy that allows us to understand and distinguish the role of inductive and transductive learning. The preliminary experimental results show interesting properties for the mixed model, highlighting how the peculiarities of the problems and the data can impact on the two learning strategies.