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Chin. Phys. B, 2026, Vol. 35(5): 058901    DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/ae0680
INTERDISCIPLINARY PHYSICS AND RELATED AREAS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Prev   Next  

A node importance prediction algorithm based on graph attention and contrastive learning

Jun Ai(艾均), Yuming Zhang(张玉明)†, Zhan Su(苏湛)‡, Chenye Guo(郭晨晔), and Mingsong Li(李铭松)
School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Abstract  In complex network analysis, node ranking is vital for propagation prediction, structural optimization, and intervention strategy design, yet existing methods often fail to effectively integrate community information in dynamic settings. To address this, this paper proposes a node ranking method that combines graph attention mechanisms with contrastive learning. Community detection is employed to extract node-level community features, and a joint embedding module is designed to fuse global and local structures, thereby incorporating community information into node representations. Based on this, a multi-layer graph attention network adaptively learns node and neighborhood features, while contrastive learning mitigates interference from dynamic evolution and strengthens the model's ability to capture multi-scale structural differences. Experiments on multiple dynamic network datasets show that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing approaches in ranking accuracy, particularly in networks with higher average degrees and clearer community structures. These results validate the effectiveness of the method in enhancing feature representation and modeling multi-scale dynamic node influence.
Keywords:  node importance      community features      graph attention      contrastive learning  
Received:  12 August 2025      Revised:  09 September 2025      Accepted manuscript online:  15 September 2025
PACS:  89.75.Hc (Networks and genealogical trees)  
  89.20.Ff (Computer science and technology)  
  05.10.-a (Computational methods in statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics)  
Corresponding Authors:  Yuming Zhang, Zhan Su     E-mail:  zym1013@163.com;suzhan@usst.edu.cn

Cite this article: 

Jun Ai(艾均), Yuming Zhang(张玉明), Zhan Su(苏湛), Chenye Guo(郭晨晔), and Mingsong Li(李铭松) A node importance prediction algorithm based on graph attention and contrastive learning 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 058901

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