Feature-enriched network geometry explains graph-structured data

Graph-structured data provide a comprehensive description of complex systems, encompassing not only the interactions among nodes but also the intrinsic features that characterize these nodes. These features play a fundamental role in the formation of links within the network, making them valuable for extracting meaningful topological information. Notably, features are at the core of deep learning techniques such as Graph Convolutional Neural Networks (GCNs) and offer great utility in tasks like node classification, link prediction, and graph clustering. In this letter, we present a comprehensive framework that treats features as tangible entities and establishes a bipartite graph connecting nodes and features. By assuming that nodes sharing similarities should also share features, we introduce a geometric similarity space where both nodes and features coexist, shaping the structure of both the node network and the bipartite network of nodes and features. Through this framework, we can identify correlations between nodes and features in real data and generate synthetic datasets that mimic the topological properties of their connectivity patterns. The approach provides insights into the inner workings of GCNs by revealing the intricate structure of the data.