Cited by 212Advanced Graph Neural NetworksTopic ModelingRecommender Systems and Techniques

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 206 of the 206 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 39 of the 58 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

A Survey on Knowledge Graph Embeddings for Link Prediction

Open access

Abstract

Knowledge graphs (KGs) have been widely used in the field of artificial intelligence, such as in information retrieval, natural language processing, recommendation systems, etc. However, the open nature of KGs often implies that they are incomplete, having self-defects. This creates the need to build a more complete knowledge graph for enhancing the practical utilization of KGs. Link prediction is a fundamental task in knowledge graph completion that utilizes existing relations to infer new relations so as to build a more complete knowledge graph. Numerous methods have been proposed to perform the link-prediction task based on various representation techniques. Among them, KG-embedding models have significantly advanced the state of the art in the past few years. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on KG-embedding models for link prediction in knowledge graphs. We first provide a theoretical analysis and comparison of existing methods proposed to date for generating KG embedding. Then, we investigate several representative models that are classified into five categories. Finally, we conducted experiments on two benchmark datasets to report comprehensive findings and provide some new insights into the strengths and weaknesses of existing models.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This survey reviews knowledge graph embedding (KGE) models for link prediction, categorizing them into translation-distance-based, semantic-matching-based, and neural-network-based approaches and analyzing representative models along five main lines. It reports unified experiments on FB15k and FB15k-237, finding that neural-network-based models and models using additional information tend to perform best, with RotatE and HypER among the top performers.

Key findings

  • The survey classifies KGE models into three main categories—translation-distance-based, semantic-matching-based, and neural-network-based—and further organizes representative models along five main lines: CNN, context information, tensor/matrix production, GCN, and TransE extensions.
  • In the reported experiments, RotatE and HypER outperform the other models. On FB15k-237, HAKE reaches MRR 0.3523 and Hits@10 0.5488; RotatE reaches MRR 0.3432 and Hits@10 0.5370; SACN reaches MRR 0.3400 and Hits@10 0.5154; HypER reaches MRR 0.3335 and Hits@10 0.5080. On FB15k, RotatE reaches MRR 0.7905 and Hits@10 0.8797; HypER reaches MRR 0.7668 and Hits@10 0.8799; RW-LMLM reaches MRR 0.7466 and Hits@10 0.8648.
  • Training time varies substantially: Bilinear+TR_bilinear has the shortest reported time at 1.8083 h, while ConvE takes 50.8799 h, LiteralE-ConvE takes 60.1813 h, DistMult takes 31.5515 h, and ComplEx takes 38.1560 h. Neural-network-based models generally have relatively low time efficiency due to more parameters.
  • The paper concludes that models using additional information (e.g., node attributes, node types, relation types, prior knowledge) and neural-network structures have better performance, while conventional translation models (TransE) and semantic models (DistMult, ComplEx) perform less well.

Methods

  • Design: a survey with theoretical analysis and comparison of existing KGE methods for link prediction, classifying models into three categories and five finer-grained main lines.
  • Data and experiments: link-prediction experiments were conducted in a unified environment using a T640 Dell server, Ubuntu 16.04, an NVIDIA-SMI 418.67 GPU, and PyTorch, with original code and settings. Two benchmark datasets were used: FB15k (14,951 entities, 1345 relations, 592,213 triples) and FB15k-237 (14,541 entities, 237 relations, 310,116 triples).
  • Implemented models: SACN, HypER, Bilinear+TR, RW-LMLM, LiteralE, SimplE, HAKE, RotatE, ConvE, DistMult, and ComplEx. Evaluation metrics include mean rank, mean reciprocal rank (MRR), and Hits@n.

Limitations

  • The paper states that it only focused on link prediction of KGE; only used two datasets (FB15k and FB15k-237); only focused on static graphs; and its proposed categories for KGE models may not be perfect.
  • Evident from the text: the experiments cover selected representative models rather than all surveyed models, and SACN’s FB15k results are missing in Table 5 (“----”).
  • Evident from the text: the paper notes future work will use more datasets such as WN18, WN18RR, and FB13, and explore dynamic and heterogeneous graphs, indicating those are not covered here.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/sym13030485

Cites

206 of 206 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

39 of 58 cited sources checked · 28 supported · 1 flagged · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 27 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 44
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 44
73 of 73
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The three categories (translation-distance-based, semantic-matching-based and neural-network-based) exhaustively cover mainstream KGE models for link prediction.

    “In this paper, we comprehensively survey existing KGE models and categorize them into three groups: translational-distance-based models, semantic-matching-based models and neural-network-based models.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The selected representative models are representative of their respective categories.

    “Several representative models in each category are also analyzed and compared along five main lines.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The two benchmark datasets are adequate for comparing KGE models for link prediction.

    “We conducted experiments on two benchmark datasets to report comprehensive findings and provide new insights into the strengths and weaknesses of existing models.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Conducting experiments in a unified environment, including server type and programming language (pytorch), ensures fair comparison across models.

    “In addition, our experiments on some representative models were conducted in a unified environment, including the server type and programming language (pytorch).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The five main lines capture the meaningful correlations among KGE models.

    “we classify all these models from a more fine-grained perspective, proposing five main lines.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    FB15k and FB15k-237 are standard datasets commonly used in this field and are suitable for comprehensively evaluating model performance.

    “We selected two datasets for our experiments, FB15k and FB15-237, which are the standard datasets commonly used in this field.”
    “Therefore, these datasets could be used to evaluate the performance of the model more comprehensively.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Training time results on FB15k are representative for general conclusions about model time efficiency.

    “Generally, the time efficiencies of the models based on neural networks are relatively low due to the introduction of more parameters.”
7 of 7

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • HAKE exceeds both models said to outperform the others

    Minor

    On FB15k-237, HAKE has higher Hits@1, Hits@3, Hits@10, and MRR than both RotatE and HypER, contradicting the unqualified claim that those two outperform the other models.

  • Hits@n is defined in the opposite direction from the results

    Minor

    If Hits@n were the proportion of ranks larger than n, Hits@1 could not be smaller than Hits@3 or Hits@10 for the same model. The reported RotatE values increase from 0.2471 to 0.3802 to 0.5370.

  • The number of model categories changes

    Minor

    The abstract says the representative models are classified into five categories, while the introduction says the paper categorizes KGE models into three groups.

  • Link prediction is both said to include and exclude entity prediction

    Minor

    Section 2.2 explicitly defines entity prediction as a subtask of link prediction, whereas the conclusion treats entity prediction as a task to study beyond this survey's focus on link prediction.

4 of 4

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Wu, T., Khan, A., Gao, H., and Li, C. (2019). Efficiently Embedding Dynamic Knowledge Graphs. arXiv.
  2. Nayyeri, M., Xu, C., Lehmann, J., and Yazdi, H.S. (2019). LogicENN: A Neural Based Knowledge Graphs Embedding Model with Logical Rules. arXiv.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 212

Metadata

Authors
Wang, M., Qiu, L., & Wang, X.
Affiliations
Xiamen University (CN)
Corresponding author
Wang, Xiaoli
Venue
Symmetry
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2021-03-16
Volume
13
Issue
3
Pages
485
ISSN
2073-8994 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3138149011
Cited by
212
References
204
Citations by year
2026: 21 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 57 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 5
FWCI
13.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Symmetry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Fujian Provincial Department of Science and Technology (2019H0001)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (61702432)
  • Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities of China (20720180070)
  • International Cooperation Projects of Fujian Province in China (2018I0016)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Advanced Graph Neural Networks
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Topic Modeling
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Recommender Systems and Techniques
Keywords
knowledge graph embedding, link prediction, knowledge graph completion, incomplete knowledge graphs

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