IVGAE-TAMA-BO: A novel temporal dynamic variational graph model for link prediction in global food trade networks with momentum structural memory and Bayesian optimization

📄 Abstract

Abstract: Global food trade plays a crucial role in ensuring food security and maintaining supply chain stability. However, its network structure evolves dynamically under the influence of geopolitical, economic, and environmental factors, making it challenging to model and predict future trade links. Effectively capturing temporal patterns in food trade networks is therefore essential for improving the accuracy and robustness of link prediction. This study introduces IVGAE-TAMA-BO, a novel dynamic graph neural network designed to model evolving trade structures and predict future links in global food trade networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to apply dynamic graph neural networks to this domain, significantly enhancing predictive performance. Building upon the original IVGAE framework, the proposed model incorporates a Trade-Aware Momentum Aggregator (TAMA) to capture the temporal evolution of trade networks, jointly modeling short-term fluctuations and long-term structural dependencies. A momentum-based structural memory mechanism further improves predictive stability and performance. In addition, Bayesian optimization is used to automatically tune key hyperparameters, enhancing generalization across diverse trade scenarios. Extensive experiments on five crop-specific datasets demonstrate that IVGAE-TAMA substantially outperforms the static IVGAE and other dynamic baselines by effectively modeling temporal dependencies, while Bayesian optimization further boosts performance in IVGAE-TAMA-BO. These results highlight the proposed framework as a robust and scalable solution for structural prediction in global trade networks, with strong potential for applications in food security monitoring and policy decision support.