提出通用行编码器,让关系型模型跨数据库更高效迁移。
Universal Encoders for Modular Relational Deep Learning

- 将行编码与图消息传递解耦,用变压器融合原始数据和表结构信息。
- 在RelBench上实现跨数据库知识迁移,收敛更快且内存占用更低。
- 适合做多表数据建模、需要快速适配新数据库的研究者。
关系型深度学习(RDL)将多表数据库建模为时序异构图以实现端到端表示学习。现有方法存在显著泛化障碍:或依赖特定模式需重新训练,或采用整体架构使特征编码与图消息传递纠缠。我们提出构建基础关系模型的四大支柱:语义粒度、结构拓扑、时间因果性与统一优化。为此,我们设计模块化方案,分离行编码与图消息传递。引入通用行编码器(Universal Row Encoder),基于变压器整合单元格原始数据与模式元信息——包括列语义、表名及全局分布统计——生成表宽不变的行嵌入。通过显式向行内自注意力机制输入全局统计量,编码器天然处理未见特征并应对稀疏数据。作为下游任意图架构的灵活‘后端’,预训练编码器在主流RelBench基准上提升跨数据库知识迁移能力,同时改善学习收敛速度与内存开销。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Relational Deep Learning (RDL) models multi-tabular databases as temporal heterogeneous graphs for end-to-end representation learning. While RDL is evolving rapidly, existing approaches face significant generalization obstacles. They are either schema-specific, requiring training from scratch for every new database, or they rely on monolithic architectures that entangle feature encoding with graph message-passing. Analyzing these limitations, we establish four core pillars for building foundational relational models: semantic granularity, structural topology, temporal causality, and unified optimization. Addressing these pillars, we propose a modular approach that decouples row encoding from graph message-passing. We introduce the Universal Row Encoder, a transformer-based module that integrates raw cell data with schema metadata$-$including column semantics, table names, and global distribution statistics$-$to produce table-width invariant row embeddings. By explicitly feeding global statistics to an intra-row self-attention mechanism, the encoder natively contextualizes unseen features and handles sparse data. Serving as a flexible "backend" for any downstream graph architecture, our pretrained encoder enhances cross-database knowledge transfer on the established RelBench benchmarks while improving learning convergence and memory footprint.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。