cs.AIOct 15, 2026
SaveHierarchical Graph Convolutional Network Approach for Detecting Low-Quality Documents
Organizations: Hanyang University · POSTECH
Abstract
Consistency within a document is a crucial feature indicative of its quality. Recently, within the vast amount of information produced across various media, there exists a significant number of low-quality documents that either lack internal consistency or contain content utterly unrelated to their headlines. Such low-quality documents induce fatigue in readers and undermine the credibility of the media source that provided them. Consequently, research to automatically detect these low-quality documents based on natural language processing is imperative. In this study, we introduce a hierarchical graph convolutional network (HGCN) that can detect internal inconsistencies within a document and incongruences between the title and body. Moreover, we constructed the Inconsistency Dataset, leveraging published news data and its meta-data, to train our model to detect document inconsistencies. Experimental results demonstrated that the HGCN achieved superior performance with an accuracy of 91.20% on our constructedInconsistency Dataset, outperforming other comparative models. Additionally, on the publicly available incongruent-related dataset, the proposed methodology demonstrated a performance of 92.00%, validating its general applicability. Finally, an ablation study further confirmed the significant impact of meta-data utilization on performance enhancement. We anticipate that our model can be universally applied to detect and filter low-quality documents in the real world.
Figures & tables
Figure 1: An example of the process to construct a dataset for detecting document inconsistencies.
Figure 2: An overview of the hierarchical graph convolutional network (HGCN). Each document component is encoded using BERT to vectorize the components. The components are assembled as nodes undergoing the graph convolutional layer process. The document vector processed through the graph convolutional layer is finally passed to the classification layer to detect low-quality documents.
| Mean | Stdev | Min | Max | 1Q | 3Q | Number of tokens | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | 1.00 | 0.07 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 29.09 |
| Body_text | 14.64 | 8.97 | 1 | 138 | 8 | 19 | 828.07 |
| Subheading | 1.00 | 0.05 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 42.48 |
| Image_caption | 1.23 | 0.69 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 45.51 |
Table 1: Characteristics of the Inconsistency Dataset.
| Model | Accuracy | |
|---|---|---|
| Inconsistency dataset | Incongruent dataset | |
| TF-IDF + SVM | 73.96 | 50.12 |
| GRU-AVG | 64.76 | 52.01 |
| GRU-LAST | 60.41 | 59.48 |
| 3HAN | 74.37 | 75.25 |
| AHDE | 78.12 | 85.03 |
Table 2: Performance comparison(%) of inconsistency and incongruent detection. ‡ denotes that the highest result is statistically significant at compared to the second best, using a paired t-test.
| GCN Layer | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | 85.60 | 86.70 | 88.20 | 91.20 | 89.00 |
Table 3: Effectiveness results based on the number of GCN layers.
| Alpha | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
| Accuracy | 87.80 | 87.80 | 91.20 | 88.40 | 89.20 | 88.90 | 88.10 |
Table 4: Effectiveness results of headline attention.
| Title | Body_text | Subheading | Image_caption | Accuracy |
| 80.78 | ||||
| 86.10 | ||||
| 89.02 | ||||
| 91.20 |
Table 5: Significance results of meta-data information. “ " indicates the use of meta-data, while “ " signifies its non-use.
Appendix figures & tables3 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Title | Jeollanam-do to Extend Tax Exemptions in Agriculture, Reflect in Government’s Tax Law Amendment |
|---|---|
| Subheading | Null |
| Body_text | Amid the Ministry of Environment’s decision to dismantle or permanently open some of the four major river weirs, Gyeongsangnam-do has drawn attention by stating that the Hapcheon-Changnyeong and Changnyeong-Haman weirs in the region should be opened as much as possible. During the 361st temporary meeting of the Gyeongsangnam-do Assembly on the 6th, Lee Sang-yeol, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea in the Economic and Environmental Committee, stated, "Opening the gates of the Hapcheon-Changnyeong and Changnyeong-Haman weirs is expected to reduce algae." The content proposed by Jeollanam-do to the government in June of this year includes provisions specified in the Special Taxation Act, which is a national tax. These consist of six cases of direct support to farmers, such as applying a reduced VAT rate to agricultural materials supplied to farmers and tax exemption on interest income from farmers’ savings, and five cases of indirect support to agricultural corporations, like tax exemption on deposits and contributions to agricultural cooperatives. The continuous tax exemption measures include interest income from farmers’ savings and interest income from cooperative deposits up to 30 million won and dividend income from contributions up to 10 million won. The reduced VAT rate will continue to apply to agricultural materials supplied to farmers to reduce the burden of farming costs, and VAT exemption will also apply to agricultural materials directly imported by farmers. The low tax rate on net profit of cooperatives such as agricultural cooperatives and tax reduction for small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in crop cultivation and livestock farming will also be maintained. The article also asked about the province’s position on fully opening these weirs. According to the revised proposal, any purchaser of rural housing, regardless of size, can benefit from a transfer income tax exemption, which currently only applies to purchasers of rural housing under 660㎡. Jeong Seok-won, Director of Environment and Forestry, answered, "The opening of the weirs is being operated flexibly to minimize the impact on the surrounding areas, such as intake and discharge facilities and agricultural damage." He added, "To improve the water quality of the Nakdong River, such as reducing algae, it is necessary to open the weirs as much as possible, but full opening should be preceded by sufficient monitoring and preparation of damage measures." He continued, "The province, in collaboration with five related departments such as the Agricultural Policy Department and cities and counties including Changwon, Euiryeong, Haman, Changnyeong, and Hapcheon, has formed a response team to check for damage due to the opening of the weirs." He also mentioned, "The Ministry of Environment plans to commission a service this month to minimize agricultural damage due to groundwater caused by the opening of the weirs and will establish damage measures based on the results." |
| Image_caption | Gyeongsangnam-do Provincial Council Plenary Hall |
Table A.1: Examples of documents lacking metadata information.
| Title | Year-end Tax Settlement and Issuance of Cash Receipts All Possible via Mobile Hometax |
|---|---|
| Subheading | Nationwide Expansion of National Tax Service’s Son-Tax Mobile Application |
| Body_text | The National Tax Service’s mobile Hometax application, Son-Tax, is set to be expanded this year to the level of PC Hometax. There have been calls for the relaxation of regulations related to the contribution of shares to public interest corporations to activate the succession of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Researcher Kim Hee-sun from the SME Research Institute argued on the 6th in a report on utilizing public interest corporations and special stocks to promote the succession of SMEs, stating, "This is a realistic alternative that can be implemented relatively quickly within the existing system." All taxpayers can file taxes such as transfer, gift, consumption, withholding, comprehensive real estate, education, recognition, and liquor taxes on mobile, and VAT, comprehensive income, and securities transaction taxes are also possible, excluding some taxpayers. From the beginning of this year, wage earners can handle the entire year-end tax settlement process on mobile. Companies can also create, modify, and submit wage income statements on mobile. Starting this month, business operators can issue cash receipts and send them to consumers via Son-Tax. Researcher Kim stated, "Fundamental improvements to the current inheritance and gift tax system are necessary to promote SME succession, but it’s not easy to implement these changes in the short term due to societal resistance to wealth inheritance." From the 20th, a year-end tax settlement chatbot counseling service will also be provided on mobile. He explained, "For business succession, utilizing a public interest corporation is an option, where the founder sets up a separate corporation pursuing public interest, and this corporation indirectly controls the successor company. This method is used in advanced countries such as the USA and Germany." He continued, "However, in Korea, there are legal restrictions that make it difficult to use due to concerns of inheritance and gift tax evasion and private benefit appropriation by large corporations. The holding limit of donated stocks to a public interest corporation is excessively strict compared to major countries overseas." In the USA, Canada, and Japan, the ownership of voting stocks by a public interest corporation is recognized up to 20%, 20%, and 50% respectively, while in Korea, inheritance and gift taxes are imposed if it exceeds 5-10%, according to Kim. He emphasized, "The purpose of this regulation is to control irregular inheritance by conglomerates and prevent economic concentration. Applying the same to SMEs is unrealistic. For SMEs eligible for family business inheritance deduction, it’s necessary to consider exempting inheritance and gift taxes on the contribution of up to about 20% of issued voting stocks to a public interest corporation." |
| Image_caption | Family Business Inheritanc |
Table A.2: Examples of documents related to specialized domains.
| Title | Third Nationwide Rally Against Pension Reform in France…Continued Strikes and Traffic Disruptions |
|---|---|
| Subheading | 200,000 Participants in Nationwide Protests…Rail and Public Transport Strikes Cause Ongoing Traffic and Logistics Issues, Public Opinion Rebounds with 62% Supporting the Strike, Prime Minister Philippe Asserts Government and Ruling Party’s Firm Commitment to Pension Reform, Labor Unions Remain on Diverging Paths |
| Body_text | On the 17th, the third nationwide strike against the government’s pension reform took place across France. The New York Times reported on the 9th that the prolonged strikes in France are rooted in long-standing class conflicts within French society, stating, "At the heart of France’s lengthy strike is a struggle between the haves and the have-nots." In the capital, Paris, protesters gathered at Place de la République and marched to Place de la Nation, and in the afternoon, clashes between protesters and police led to the use of tear gas for dispersion. The newspaper explained that the current conflict between the unions and the government is part of a broader class struggle between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged, a conflict that has been present in French society for the past 200 years. On this day, 75.8% of SNCF engineers and 34% of railway controllers joined the strike. This strike has historical roots in events such as the French Revolution, which in the late 18th century drove out the privileged nobility and clergy, and the 19th-century conflicts between capitalists and workers. Teachers from various schools also joined the strike, leading to numerous school closures. Philippe Dichban, a sociology professor at the French National Center for Scientific Research, explained that French society is stratified, and the equality pursued by citizens ultimately aims for everyone to be part of the upper class, leading to unending conflicts. The striking parties themselves view this issue not merely as a protest against pension reform but as a struggle between the privileged class and ordinary workers. CFDT, which does not oppose the government’s pension reform plan to unify 42 retirement pension systems into one, joined the third rally in opposition to the government’s decision to delay retirement age from 62 to 64 years. Philippe Martinez, the leader of the General Confederation of Labor, recently stated in a local broadcast, "There are two visions of social security in opposition," emphasizing, "The essence of pension reform is choosing what kind of society we want." According to AFP, about 200,000 people gathered nationwide for the third rally. On the first rally on the 5th, 800,000 took to the streets nationwide, and on the second rally on the 10th, 339,000 gathered. This perspective is shared by the general union members. Sebastien Proda, a CGT station worker, criticized, "President Macron is only interested in profit-making," adding, "But we are striking not for money, but to provide better services to the public." Although the goal is to redesign the pension system in line with demographic changes due to aging and to reduce the state’s financial burden by introducing a single pension system and increasing labor flexibility, the labor sector strongly opposes, arguing, "They want us to work longer and give less pension." They continue, "People in the government come from the world of finance, but we are just fighting for our right to rest after a lifetime of work." The French government is open to negotiating the issue of delayed retirement age, but both sides remain at an impasse. Ahno Buchju, a striking railway engineer, said, "Macron sees everything from the perspective of competition as a financier, while we on strike see it from the perspective of the collective," explaining, "These are completely opposing views." |
| Image_caption | French Union Members Protesting Against Pension Reform - CGT members holding a strike demonstration in Marseille on the 10th of last month. Scenes of the French Pension Reform Opposition Rally - The fourth general strike in Paris on the 9th. "The French Pension Strike is an Extension of the 18th Century Revolution and the 19th Century Workers vs. Capitalists Struggle" |
Table A.3: Examples of documents involving the same Issue.