arXiv:2411.12064cs.AIcs.IR2024-11KDD被引 5

用旅行商问题重构排序,兼顾局部对比与全局结构。

TSPRank: Bridging Pairwise and Listwise Methods with a Bilinear Travelling Salesman Model

  • 将排序转化为旅行商问题,融合成对比较与整体优化。
  • 在股票、检索等任务上超越纯成对与列表方法。
  • 适合需要全局感知的跨领域排序场景。

传统学习排序方法如 RankNet、LambdaMART 仅依赖成对比较,难以获得最优全局排序;而基于深度学习的列表方法虽试图优化完整列表,却需复杂调参且性能提升有限。为此,本文提出 TSPRank,一种融合成对与列表方法的混合排序框架。TSPRank 将排序问题重新建模为旅行商问题(TSP),利用其成熟的组合优化算法,同时捕捉成对关系并生成全局最优排序。该方法可作为组件直接嵌入现有主干模型的嵌入表示中,无需额外训练。在三种主干模型上,针对股票排序、信息检索及历史事件排序等多样任务的实验表明,TSPRank 显著优于纯成对和列表方法。定性分析显示,其核心优势在于更有效利用全局信息进行排序。TSPRank 在多领域表现出强鲁棒性与优越性能,展现出作为通用高效学习排序解决方案的巨大潜力。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Traditional Learning-To-Rank (LETOR) approaches, including pairwise methods like RankNet and LambdaMART, often fall short by solely focusing on pairwise comparisons, leading to sub-optimal global rankings. Conversely, deep learning based listwise methods, while aiming to optimise entire lists, require complex tuning and yield only marginal improvements over robust pairwise models. To overcome these limitations, we introduce Travelling Salesman Problem Rank (TSPRank), a hybrid pairwise-listwise ranking method. TSPRank reframes the ranking problem as a Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP), a well-known combinatorial optimisation challenge that has been extensively studied for its numerous solution algorithms and applications. This approach enables the modelling of pairwise relationships and leverages combinatorial optimisation to determine the listwise ranking. This approach can be directly integrated as an additional component into embeddings generated by existing backbone models to enhance ranking performance. Our extensive experiments across three backbone models on diverse tasks, including stock ranking, information retrieval, and historical events ordering, demonstrate that TSPRank significantly outperforms both pure pairwise and listwise methods. Our qualitative analysis reveals that TSPRank's main advantage over existing methods is its ability to harness global information better while ranking. TSPRank's robustness and superior performance across different domains highlight its potential as a versatile and effective LETOR solution.

学习排序旅行商问题组合优化

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