The Post-GCN Decade Revisited: Curvature-Stratified Evaluation of Relational Learning

Current evaluation practices in relational learning rely heavily on flat leaderboards that average performance across heterogeneous datasets, implicitly assuming a uniform underlying structure. We show that this assumption introduces systematic bias: it obscures geometry-dependent performance variations and can lead to misleading conclusions about model generalization. In this work, we identify intrinsic geometry as a key latent factor governing model effectiveness. We demonstrate that conventional aggregated metrics mask critical performance trade-offs that only become visible when datasets are stratified by their geometric properties. To address this issue, we introduce a curvature-stratified evaluation framework that partitions datasets into positive, negative, and near-zero curvature regimes. Our benchmark evaluates 18 representative models including Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs), Graph Foundation Models (GFMs), and tabular learning methods across 14 datasets. We find that model rankings are highly stable within each curvature regime but shift significantly across regimes, indicating that performance is fundamentally geometry-dependent rather than universally transferable. Notably, we identify regimes where GFMs offer diminishing returns compared to geometry-aligned GNNs. Based on these findings, we propose a geometry-aware evaluation protocol that yields more reliable and interpretable comparisons than standard aggregated benchmarks. We release all code, curvature-stratified dataset splits, and evaluation tools to support reproducible and rigorous assessment of future relational learning methods. Code and datasets are provided in our project homepage: https://sirbabbage.github.io/CurvBench_HOME/.

Cooperation of Experts: Fusing Heterogeneous Information with Large Margin

Fusing heterogeneous information remains a persistent challenge in modern data analysis. While significant progress has been made, existing approaches often fail to account for the inherent heterogeneity of object patterns across different semantic spaces. To address this limitation, we propose the Cooperation of Experts (CoE) framework, which encodes multi-typed information into unified heterogeneous multiplex networks. By overcoming modality and connection differences, CoE provides a powerful and flexible model for capturing the intricate structures of real-world complex data. In our framework, dedicated encoders act as domain-specific experts, each specializing in learning distinct relational patterns in specific semantic spaces. To enhance robustness and extract complementary knowledge, these experts collaborate through a novel large margin mechanism supported by a tailored optimization strategy. Rigorous theoretical analyses guarantee the framework's feasibility and stability, while extensive experiments across diverse benchmarks demonstrate its superior performance and broad applicability. Our code is available at https://github.com/strangeAlan/CoE.