Mitigating Structural Overfitting: A Distribution-Aware Rectification Framework for Missing Feature Imputation
Abstract
Incomplete node features are ubiquitous in real-world scenarios such as user profiling and cold-start recommendation, which severely hinders the practical deployment of graph learning systems (e.g., GNNs). Existing solutions typically rely on diffusion-based structural smoothing (e.g., feature propagation) to impute missing values. However, we find that these approaches suffer from structural overfitting, leading to three progressive challenges: 1) performance degradation on disjoint graphs, 2) loss of semantic diversity due to over-smoothing, and 3) feature distribution shift when generalizing to unseen graph structures (inductive tasks). To address these challenges, we introduce the DART framework. It begins by employing Global Structural Augmentation (GSA), which establishes global correlations to bridge disjoint components and extend diffusion coverage. Building upon this, we design a semantic rectifier based on masked autoencoding. This module learns the latent feature manifold to recover natural semantic details. Crucially, we introduce a test-time distribution rectification mechanism that projects structurally biased features back onto the learned manifold during inference, effectively bridging the inductive distribution gap. Furthermore, considering that synthetic masking fails to reflect realworld sparsity, we present a new dataset Sailing collected from voyage records with naturally missing attributes. Extensive experiments on six public datasets and Sailing demonstrate that DART significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both transductive and inductive settings. Our code and dataset are available at https://github.com/yfsong00/DART.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yixin Liu 0001 | 79 | 100 GOODAT: Towards Test-Time Graph Out-of-Distribution Detection (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 GOOD-D: On Unsupervised Graph Out-Of-Distribution Detection (2023) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 Unifying Unsupervised Graph-Level Anomaly Detection and Out-of-Distribution Detection: A Benchmark (2025) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection |
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| 2 | Fangzhou Yao | 45 | 100 Federated Self-Explaining GNNs with Anti-shortcut Augmentations (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 Empowering Federated Graph Rationale Learning with Latent Environments (2025) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 Cooperative Classification and Rationalization for Graph Generalization (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yixin Liu 0001 assigned | 79 | 3 | 100 GOODAT: Towards Test-Time Graph Out-of-Distribution Detection (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 GOOD-D: On Unsupervised Graph Out-Of-Distribution Detection (2023) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection |
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| 2 | Fangzhou Yao assigned | 45 | 3 | 100 Federated Self-Explaining GNNs with Anti-shortcut Augmentations (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 100 Empowering Federated Graph Rationale Learning with Latent Environments (2025) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection |
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| 3 | Hyunsik Yoo | 39 | 3 | 100 Class-Imbalanced Graph Learning without Class Rebalancing (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 70 Disentangling Degree-related Biases and Interest for Out-of-Distribution Generalized Directed Network Embedding (2023) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection |
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| 4 | Dongxiao He | 36 | 3 | 43 AS-GCN: Adaptive Semantic Architecture of Graph Convolutional Networks for Text-Rich Networks (2021) Graph Learning for Text-Attributed and Heterogeneous Networks 43 Text-Rich Graph Neural Networks With Subjective-Objective Semantic Modeling (2024) Graph Learning for Text-Attributed and Heterogeneous Networks |
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| 5 | Jing Zhu 0005 | 34 | 3 | 43 Pitfalls in Link Prediction with Graph Neural Networks: Understanding the Impact of Target-link Inclusion & Better Practices (2024) Graph Learning for Text-Attributed and Heterogeneous Networks 43 On the Impact of Feature Heterophily on Link Prediction with Graph Neural Networks (2024) Graph Learning for Text-Attributed and Heterogeneous Networks |
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| 6 | Lianghao Xia | 34 | 3 | 42 GraphPro: Graph Pre-training and Prompt Learning for Recommendation (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 42 Graph Augmentation for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 7 | Mengyuan Jing | 33 | 3 | 42 Graph Contrastive Learning with Adaptive Augmentation for Recommendation (2022) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 42 Review-Enhanced Hierarchical Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 8 | Xubin Ren | 33 | 3 | 42 A Survey of Large Language Models for Graphs (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 42 Graph Transformer for Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 9 | Ben Liu 0002 | 32 | 3 | 42 Enhanced Expert Merging for Mixture-of-Experts in Graph Foundation Models (2025) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 35 UniLP: Unified Topology-aware Generative Framework for Link Prediction in Knowledge Graph (2024) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 10 | Chen Wang 0052 | 32 | 3 | 42 Instruction-based Hypergraph Pretraining (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 37 Unified Pretraining for Recommendation via Task Hypergraphs (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models |
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| 12 | Mingdai Yang | 31 | 3 | 42 Instruction-based Hypergraph Pretraining (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 37 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning |
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| 13 | Xiaolong Liu 0012 | 31 | 3 | 42 Instruction-based Hypergraph Pretraining (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models 37 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning |
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| 14 | Xiaolong Jin 0001 | 31 | 3 | 35 Shared Embedding Based Neural Networks for Knowledge Graph Completion (2018) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion 35 Knowledge Graph Embedding: A Locally and Temporally Adaptive Translation-Based Approach (2018) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 15 | Yi Zhang 0103 | 30 | 3 | 38 Heterogeneous Adaptive Preference Learning for Recommendation (2026) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 38 Intent-Guided Heterogeneous Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 16 | Wei Wei 0027 | 30 | 3 | 38 Heterogeneous Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 33 LLMRec: Large Language Models with Graph Augmentation for Recommendation (2024) Graph Pretraining and Foundation Models |
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| 17 | Jiancan Wu | 30 | 3 | 64 How graph convolutions amplify popularity bias for recommendation? (2024) Graph Anomaly and Out-of-Distribution Detection 37 Self-supervised Graph Learning for Recommendation (2021) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 18 | Ke Wang 0038 | 30 | 3 | 36 Inter- and Intra-Domain Relation-Aware Heterogeneous Graph Convolutional Networks for Cross-Domain Recommendation (2022) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 35 Disentangled Contrastive Learning for Cross-Domain Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 19 | Tianzhe Zhao | 30 | 3 | 39 Inductive Relation Prediction with Logical Reasoning Using Contrastive Representations (2022) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion 39 Incorporating Context Graph with Logical Reasoning for Inductive Relation Prediction (2022) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 20 | Lingling Yi | 29 | 3 | 36 Robust Preference-Guided Denoising for Graph based Social Recommendation (2023) Social and Group Graph Recommendation 35 Adaptive Graph Integration for Cross-Domain Recommendation via Heterogeneous Graph Coordinators (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 21 | Jiapu Wang | 29 | 3 | 42 ComGRL: Comprehensive Graph Representation Learning From Local to Global Bridged by Mixup (2026) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 35 TDN: Triplet Distributor Network for Knowledge Graph Completion (2023) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 22 | Yuchen Li 0006 | 29 | 3 | 32 RankElectra: Semi-supervised Pre-training of Learning-to-Rank Electra for Web-scale Search (2025) Web-Scale Learning to Rank 32 MPGraf: a Modular and Pre-trained Graphformer for Learning to Rank at Web-scale (2023) Web-Scale Learning to Rank |
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| 23 | Xurong Liang | 29 | 3 | 34 Lightweight Embeddings with Graph Rewiring for Collaborative Filtering (2025) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning 34 Lightweight Embeddings for Graph Collaborative Filtering (2024) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning |
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| 24 | Xinhang Li 0001 | 28 | 3 | 42 Contrastive Graph Pooling for Explainable Classification of Brain Networks (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 35 IMF: Interactive Multimodal Fusion Model for Link Prediction (2023) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 25 | Yinwei Wei | 28 | 3 | 37 MultiCBR: Multi-view Contrastive Learning for Bundle Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 35 Data-efficient Fine-tuning for LLM-based Recommendation (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 26 | Jurek Leonhardt | 28 | 3 | 40 Node Representation Learning for Directed Graphs (2019) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning 28 Efficient Neural Ranking Using Forward Indexes and Lightweight Encoders (2024) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency |
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| 27 | Xiangyu Ke | 28 | 3 | 35 Scalable Community Search over Large-scale Graphs based on Graph Transformer (2024) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion 35 Effective and Efficient Community Search with Graph Embeddings (2023) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
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| 28 | Yongjing Hao | 28 | 3 | 37 LMACL: Improving Graph Collaborative Filtering with Learnable Model Augmentation Contrastive Learning (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 37 Meta-optimized Structural and Semantic Contrastive Learning for Graph Collaborative Filtering (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 29 | Franco Maria Nardini | 28 | 3 | 30 ReNeuIR at SIGIR 2024: The Third Workshop on Reaching Efficiency in Neural Information Retrieval (2024) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency 30 ReNeuIR at SIGIR 2023: The Second Workshop on Reaching Efficiency in Neural Information Retrieval (2023) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency |
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| 30 | Yang Zhang 0072 | 28 | 3 | 35 Preliminary Study on Incremental Learning for Large Language Model-based Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 30 AlpsBench: An LLM Personalization Benchmark for Real-Dialogue Memorization and Preference Alignment (2026) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 31 | Jiuqiang Li 0002 | 28 | 3 | 36 Graph Diffusive Self-Supervised Learning for Social Recommendation (2024) Social and Group Recommendation 30 Disentangled Contrastive Bundle Recommendation with Conditional Diffusion (2025) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders |