Proposes efficient stochastic algorithms for optimizing NDCG with provable convergence guarantees.
problem Efficient and provable stochastic methods for maximizing NDCG in deep learning models.
method Formulates novel compositional optimization problems, develops efficient stochastic algorithms with provable convergence guarantees, and proposes practical strategies.
result Stochastic algorithms with provable convergence guarantees for optimizing NDCG and its top-K variant. A central problem in ranking is to design a ranking measure for evaluation of ranking functions. In this paper we study, from a theoretical perspective, the widely used Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG)-type ranking measures. Although there are extensive empirical studies of NDCG, little is known about its t…
Hashing, or learning binary embeddings of data, is frequently used in nearest neighbor retrieval. In this paper, we develop learning to rank formulations for hashing, aimed at directly optimizing ranking-based evaluation metrics such as Average Precision (AP) and Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG). We first o…
Linear NDCG is used for measuring the performance of the Web content quality assessment in ECML/PKDD Discovery Challenge 2010. In this paper, we will prove that the DCG error equals a new pair-wise loss.
Pretrained model improves visual dialog performance.
problem Improving performance in visual dialog tasks.
method Pretrained ViLBERT model on vision-language datasets, fine-tuned on VisDial.
result Best model outperforms prior work by more than 1% on NDCG and MRR.
Listwise learning-to-rank methods form a powerful class of ranking algorithms that are widely adopted in applications such as information retrieval. These algorithms learn to rank a set of items by optimizing a loss that is a function of the entire set -- as a surrogate to a typically non-differentiable ranking metric.…
When estimating the relevancy between a query and a document, ranking models largely neglect the mutual information among documents. A common wisdom is that if two documents are similar in terms of the same query, they are more likely to have similar relevance score. To mitigate this problem, in this paper, we propose …
This paper introduces a novel approach for learning to rank (LETOR) based on the notion of monotone retargeting. It involves minimizing a divergence between all monotonic increasing transformations of the training scores and a parameterized prediction function. The minimization is both over the transformations as well …
Unified RL meta-learning framework for few-shot optimization.
problem Few-shot learning optimization problems.
method Generic RL meta-learning framework that learns optimal optimization algorithms.
result Significantly improved performance on few-shot tasks.
Improved product recommendations using deep learning.
problem Sparse customer purchasing data for personalized recommendations.
method Deep Collaborative Filtering (NCF) with latent variables and Bayesian Optimization.
result NCF achieved highest NDCG performance on proprietary dataset.
SANST uses self-attentive networks with spatial and temporal embeddings for better POI recommendations.
problem Next point-of-interest (POI) recommendation for users based on their history.
method SANST incorporates spatio-temporal patterns into self-attentive networks.
result SANST outperforms state-of-the-art models by up to 13.65% in nDCG@10.
Conventional Learning-to-Rank (LTR) methods optimize the utility of the rankings to the users, but they are oblivious to their impact on the ranked items. However, there has been a growing understanding that the latter is important to consider for a wide range of ranking applications (e.g. online marketplaces, job plac…
Perceptron is a classic online algorithm for learning a classification function. In this paper, we provide a novel extension of the perceptron algorithm to the learning to rank problem in information retrieval. We consider popular listwise performance measures such as Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) and Av…
We propose in this paper a new, hybrid document embedding approach in order to address the problem of document similarities with respect to the technical content. To do so, we employ a state-of-the-art graph techniques to first extract the keyphrases (composite keywords) of documents and, then, use them to score the se…
The goal in extreme multi-label classification is to learn a classifier which can assign a small subset of relevant labels to an instance from an extremely large set of target labels. Datasets in extreme classification exhibit a long tail of labels which have small number of positive training instances. In this work, w…
In this paper we consider the collaborative ranking setting: a pool of users each provides a small number of pairwise preferences between d possible items; from these we need to predict preferences of the users for items they have not yet seen. We do so by fitting a rank r score matrix to the pairwise data, and pro…
The paper analyzes the generalizability of linear autoencoders and multivariate linear regression.
problem Limited theoretical understanding of linear autoencoders' performance.
method Proposes a PAC-Bayes bound for multivariate linear regression and shows LAEs as constrained models.
result The proposed PAC-Bayes bound is tight and correlates with practical metrics.
We present an algorithm for extraction of a probabilistic deterministic finite automaton (PDFA) from a given black-box language model, such as a recurrent neural network (RNN). The algorithm is a variant of the exact-learning algorithm L*, adapted to a probabilistic setting with noise. The key insight is the use of con…
New framework for optimizing machine learning risks.
problem Optimizing non-decomposable machine learning objectives.
method Empirical X-risk minimization (EXM) framework with algorithmic techniques.
result Developed algorithms for solving EXM with smooth non-convex objectives.
We consider the link prediction problem in a partially observed network, where the objective is to make predictions in the unobserved portion of the network. Many existing methods reduce link prediction to binary classification problem. However, the dominance of absent links in real world networks makes misclassificati…
ManifoldMind uses adaptive-curvature probabilistic spheres for trustworthy recommendations in semantic hierarchies.
problem Sparse and abstract recommendation domains where users explore diverse conceptual paths.
method Adaptive-curvature probabilistic spheres, soft multi-hop inference, and curvature-aware semantic kernel.
result Superior NDCG, calibration, and diversity compared to baselines on public benchmarks.
We consider the problem of online collaborative filtering in the online setting, where items are recommended to the users over time. At each time step, the user (selected by the environment) consumes an item (selected by the agent) and provides a rating of the selected item. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm …
Ranking recommendation algorithms across datasets using Bradley-Terry model
problem Comparing recommendation algorithms across different datasets
method Introduce a novel data-driven ranking methodology based on Bradley-Terry model
result The obtained ranking depends on key dataset statistics
Sample-Rank simplifies MO recommendations by sampling and ranking, improving revenue with stable conversion rates.
problem Multi-objective recommendations in online food ordering systems.
method Multi-goal sampling followed by ranking, reducing MO problem to LTR model.
result Significant lift in revenue (2.64%) with stable conversion rates, no drop in last-mile traversal.
In the IEEE Investment ranking challenge 2018, participants were asked to build a model which would identify the best performing stocks based on their returns over a forward six months window. Anonymized financial predictors and semi-annual returns were provided for a group of anonymized stocks from 1996 to 2017, which…
We extend the recently introduced theory of Lovasz-Bregman (LB) divergences (Iyer & Bilmes 2012) in several ways. We show that they represent a distortion between a "score" and an "ordering", thus providing a new view of rank aggregation and order based clustering with interesting connections to web ranking. We show ho…
Knowledge distillation (KD) is a well-known method to reduce inference latency by compressing a cumbersome teacher model to a small student model. Despite the success of KD in the classification task, applying KD to recommender models is challenging due to the sparsity of positive feedback, the ambiguity of missing fee…
We extend the recently introduced theory of Lovasz-Bregman (LB) divergences (Iyer & Bilmes, 2012) in several ways. We show that they represent a distortion between a 'score' and an 'ordering', thus providing a new view of rank aggregation and order based clustering with interesting connections to web ranking. We show h…
How can we estimate the importance of nodes in a knowledge graph (KG)? A KG is a multi-relational graph that has proven valuable for many tasks including question answering and semantic search. In this paper, we present GENI, a method for tackling the problem of estimating node importance in KGs, which enables several …
The cross-domain recommendation technique is an effective way of alleviating the data sparse issue in recommender systems by leveraging the knowledge from relevant domains. Transfer learning is a class of algorithms underlying these techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel transfer learning approach for cross-doma…
Learning to rank is a supervised learning problem where the output space is the space of rankings but the supervision space is the space of relevance scores. We make theoretical contributions to the learning to rank problem both in the online and batch settings. First, we propose a perceptron-like algorithm for learnin…
The unevenness importance of criminal activities in the onion domains of the Tor Darknet and the different levels of their appeal to the end-user make them tangled to measure their influence. To this end, this paper presents a novel content-based ranking framework to detect the most influential onion domains. Our appro…
PGRec improves recommendation by modeling user-item preferences as a graph and embedding it for better predictions.
problem Sparse user-item data in recommender systems.
method PGRec models user-item preferences as a PrefGraph, then uses deep learning and factorization to embed and predict user preferences.
result PGRec outperforms state-of-the-art methods by up to 3.2% in NDCG@10.
Framework ranks sectors influenced by Indian Union Budgets.
problem Real-time analysis of budgetary impacts on sector-specific equity performance.
method Fine-tuned embeddings and language models for sector identification and performance ranking.
result 0.997 NDCG score in predicting sector ranks based on post-budget performances.
Proposes new listwise learning-to-rank models to address rating ties and document relevance.
problem Rating ties and document relevance in existing listwise learning-to-rank models.
method Models ranking as selecting documents from a candidate set based on unique rating levels. Uses a new loss function and adapted RNN model for refining prediction scores.
result Models notably outperform state-of-the-art learning-to-rank models on four public datasets.
Genealogy research is the study of family history using available resources such as historical records. Ancestry provides its customers with one of the world's largest online genealogical index with billions of records from a wide range of sources, including vital records such as birth and death certificates, census re…
We propose Style Conditioned Recommendations (SCR) and introduce style injection as a method to diversify recommendations. We use Conditional Variational Autoencoder (CVAE) architecture, where both the encoder and decoder are conditioned on a user profile learned from item content data. This allows us to apply style tr…
MultiImport infers node importance from multiple KG signals.
problem Inferring node importance in a knowledge graph from multiple input signals.
method End-to-end latent variable model using attentive graph neural networks.
result MultiImport consistently outperforms existing methods, achieving up to 23.7% higher NDCG@100.
The collaborative ranking problem has been an important open research question as most recommendation problems can be naturally formulated as ranking problems. While much of collaborative ranking methodology assumes static ranking data, the importance of temporal information to improving ranking performance is increasi…
Hop Sampling improves GNNs in non-stationary environments by preventing overfitting.
problem Non-stationary environments cause concept drift, making GNNs overfit to training graphs.
method Randomly selects the number of propagation steps in GNNs to prevent overfitting.
result Improves GNNs' prediction accuracy by 7.97% and 16.93% in LINE Coupon recommender systems.
VisitHGNN predicts visit probabilities between neighborhoods and POIs using graph neural networks.
problem Estimating visit probabilities between neighborhoods and POIs for urban planning.
method Heterogeneous, relation-specific graph neural network (VisitHGNN) trained on mobility data.
result Strong predictive performance with high fidelity to observed travel behavior.
Bayesian optimization reduces computational effort in aircraft design optimization.
problem High computational cost in industrial aircraft design optimization.
method Constrained Bayesian optimization (Super Efficient Global Optimization with Mixture of Experts)
result Significant computational efficiency improvements over existing Isight optimizers.
Bayesian optimization method tackles combinatorial spaces, scalable for large data.
problem Optimization over combinatorial categorical spaces in natural sciences.
method Combines variational optimization and continuous relaxations for gradient-based optimization.
result Method performs comparably to state-of-the-art methods while scaling well.
New algorithm solves complex stopping problems with robust optimization.
problem Solving complex stochastic optimal stopping problems.
method Simulation-based robust optimization with exact reformulation as a zero-one bilinear program.
result Developed polynomial-time heuristics and algorithms for practical solution.
L2O uses ML to optimize traditional optimization techniques.
problem Real-world optimization problems with shared structures.
method Exploiting shared structures to enhance optimization techniques.
result Better or faster solutions through machine learning integration.
When hyperparameter optimization of a machine learning algorithm is repeated for multiple datasets it is possible to transfer knowledge to an optimization run on a new dataset. We develop a new hyperparameter-free ensemble model for Bayesian optimization that is a generalization of two existing transfer learning extens…
Meta algorithm solves multivariate optimization using univariate optimizers.
problem Multivariate global optimization problems.
method Meta algorithm combining univariate global optimizers.
result Meta algorithm provides robust regret guarantees.
A novel neural network approach for optimization problems.
problem Constrained optimization problems.
method Neural Optimization Machine (NOM) using a specially designed NN architecture and training procedure.
result Solves optimization problems efficiently, especially in high-dimensional spaces.