Federated Prototype-based Contrastive Learning for Privacy-Preserving Cross-domain Recommendation

Cross-domain recommendation (CDR) aims to improve recommendation accuracy in sparse domains by transferring knowledge from data-rich domains. However, existing CDR methods often assume the availability of user-item interaction data across domains, overlooking user privacy concerns. Furthermore, these methods suffer from performance degradation in scenarios with sparse overlapping users, as they typically depend on a large number of fully shared users for effective knowledge transfer. To address these challenges, we propose a Federated Prototype-based Contrastive Learning (CL) method for Privacy-Preserving CDR, named FedPCL-CDR. This approach utilizes non-overlapping user information and prototypes to improve multi-domain performance while protecting user privacy. FedPCL-CDR comprises two modules: local domain (client) learning and global server aggregation. In the local domain, FedPCL-CDR clusters all user data to learn representative prototypes, effectively utilizing non-overlapping user information and addressing the sparse overlapping user issue. It then facilitates knowledge transfer by employing both local and global prototypes returned from the server in a CL manner. Simultaneously, the global server aggregates representative prototypes from local domains to learn both local and global prototypes. The combination of prototypes and federated learning (FL) ensures that sensitive user data remains decentralized, with only prototypes being shared across domains, thereby protecting user privacy. Extensive experiments on four CDR tasks using two real-world datasets demonstrate that FedPCL-CDR outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines.

A Learnable Agent Collaboration Network Framework for Personalized Multimodal AI Search Engine

Large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) techniques have revolutionized traditional information access, enabling AI agent to search and summarize information on behalf of users during dynamic dialogues. Despite their potential, current AI search engines exhibit considerable room for improvement in several critical areas. These areas include the support for multimodal information, the delivery of personalized responses, the capability to logically answer complex questions, and the facilitation of more flexible interactions. This paper proposes a novel AI Search Engine framework called the Agent Collaboration Network (ACN). The ACN framework consists of multiple specialized agents working collaboratively, each with distinct roles such as Account Manager, Solution Strategist, Information Manager, and Content Creator. This framework integrates mechanisms for picture content understanding, user profile tracking, and online evolution, enhancing the AI search engine's response quality, personalization, and interactivity. A highlight of the ACN is the introduction of a Reflective Forward Optimization method (RFO), which supports the online synergistic adjustment among agents. This feature endows the ACN with online learning capabilities, ensuring that the system has strong interactive flexibility and can promptly adapt to user feedback. This learning method may also serve as an optimization approach for agent-based systems, potentially influencing other domains of agent applications.

Federated User Preference Modeling for Privacy-Preserving Cross-Domain Recommendation

Cross-domain recommendation (CDR) aims to address the data-sparsity problem by transferring knowledge across domains. Existing CDR methods generally assume that the user-item interaction data is shareable between domains, which leads to privacy leakage. Recently, some privacy-preserving CDR (PPCDR) models have been proposed to solve this problem. However, they primarily transfer simple representations learned only from user-item interaction histories, overlooking other useful side information, leading to inaccurate user preferences. Additionally, they transfer differentially private user-item interaction matrices or embeddings across domains to protect privacy. However, these methods offer limited privacy protection, as attackers may exploit external information to infer the original data. To address these challenges, we propose a novel Federated User Preference Modeling (FUPM) framework. In FUPM, first, a novel comprehensive preference exploration module is proposed to learn users' comprehensive preferences from both interaction data and additional data including review texts and potentially positive items. Next, a private preference transfer module is designed to first learn differentially private local and global prototypes, and then privately transfer the global prototypes using a federated learning strategy. These prototypes are generalized representations of user groups, making it difficult for attackers to infer individual information. Extensive experiments on four CDR tasks conducted on the Amazon and Douban datasets validate the superiority of FUPM over SOTA baselines. Code is available at https://github.com/Lili1013/FUPM.

Beyond KAN: Introducing KarSein for Adaptive High-Order Feature Interaction Modeling in CTR Prediction

Modeling feature interactions is crucial for click-through rate (CTR) prediction, particularly when it comes to high-order explicit interactions. Traditional methods struggle with this task because they often predefine a maximum interaction order, which relies heavily on prior knowledge and can limit the model's effectiveness. Additionally, modeling high-order interactions typically leads to increased computational costs. Therefore, the challenge lies in adaptively modeling high-order feature interactions while maintaining efficiency. To address this issue, we introduce Kolmogorov-Arnold Represented Sparse Efficient Interaction Network (KarSein), designed to optimize both predictive accuracy and computational efficiency. We firstly identify limitations of directly applying Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KAN) to CTR and then introduce KarSein to overcome these issues. It features a novel architecture that reduces the computational costs of KAN and supports embedding vectors as feature inputs. Additionally, KarSein employs guided symbolic regression to address the challenge of KAN in spontaneously learning multiplicative relationships. Extensive experiments demonstrate KarSein's superior performance, achieving significant predictive accuracy with minimal computational overhead. Furthermore, KarSein maintains strong global explainability while enabling the removal of redundant features, resulting in a sparse network structure. These advantages also position KarSein as a promising method for efficient inference.

Multiobjective Vehicle Routing Optimization with Time Windows: A Hybrid Approach Using Deep Reinforcement Learning and NSGA-II

This paper proposes a weight-aware deep reinforcement learning (WADRL) approach designed to address the multiobjective vehicle routing problem with time windows (MOVRPTW), aiming to use a single deep reinforcement learning (DRL) model to solve the entire multiobjective optimization problem. The Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) method is then employed to optimize the outcomes produced by the WADRL, thereby mitigating the limitations of both approaches. Firstly, we design an MOVRPTW model to balance the minimization of travel cost and the maximization of customer satisfaction. Subsequently, we present a novel DRL framework that incorporates a transformer-based policy network. This network is composed of an encoder module, a weight embedding module where the weights of the objective functions are incorporated, and a decoder module. NSGA-II is then utilized to optimize the solutions generated by WADRL. Finally, extensive experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms the existing and traditional methods. Due to the numerous constraints in VRPTW, generating initial solutions of the NSGA-II algorithm can be time-consuming. However, using solutions generated by the WADRL as initial solutions for NSGA-II significantly reduces the time required for generating initial solutions. Meanwhile, the NSGA-II algorithm can enhance the quality of solutions generated by WADRL, resulting in solutions with better scalability. Notably, the weight-aware strategy significantly reduces the training time of DRL while achieving better results, enabling a single DRL model to solve the entire multiobjective optimization problem.

Enhancing Retrieval and Managing Retrieval: A Four-Module Synergy for Improved Quality and Efficiency in RAG Systems

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) techniques leverage the in-context learning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to produce more accurate and relevant responses. Originating from the simple 'retrieve-then-read' approach, the RAG framework has evolved into a highly flexible and modular paradigm. A critical component, the Query Rewriter module, enhances knowledge retrieval by generating a search-friendly query. This method aligns input questions more closely with the knowledge base. Our research identifies opportunities to enhance the Query Rewriter module to Query Rewriter+ by generating multiple queries to overcome the Information Plateaus associated with a single query and by rewriting questions to eliminate Ambiguity, thereby clarifying the underlying intent. We also find that current RAG systems exhibit issues with Irrelevant Knowledge; to overcome this, we propose the Knowledge Filter. These two modules are both based on the instruction-tuned Gemma-2B model, which together enhance response quality. The final identified issue is Redundant Retrieval; we introduce the Memory Knowledge Reservoir and the Retriever Trigger to solve this. The former supports the dynamic expansion of the RAG system's knowledge base in a parameter-free manner, while the latter optimizes the cost for accessing external knowledge, thereby improving resource utilization and response efficiency. These four RAG modules synergistically improve the response quality and efficiency of the RAG system. The effectiveness of these modules has been validated through experiments and ablation studies across six common QA datasets. The source code can be accessed at https://github.com/Ancientshi/ERM4.

Conditional Local Feature Encoding for Graph Neural Networks

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have shown great success in learning from graph-based data. The key mechanism of current GNNs is message passing, where a node's feature is updated based on the information passing from its local neighbourhood. A limitation of this mechanism is that node features become increasingly dominated by the information aggregated from the neighbourhood as we use more rounds of message passing. Consequently, as the GNN layers become deeper, adjacent node features tends to be similar, making it more difficult for GNNs to distinguish adjacent nodes, thereby, limiting the performance of GNNs. In this paper, we propose conditional local feature encoding (CLFE) to help prevent the problem of node features being dominated by the information from local neighbourhood. The idea of our method is to extract the node hidden state embedding from message passing process and concatenate it with the nodes feature from previous stage, then we utilise linear transformation to form a CLFE based on the concatenated vector. The CLFE will form the layer output to better preserve node-specific information, thus help to improve the performance of GNN models. To verify the feasibility of our method, we conducted extensive experiments on seven benchmark datasets for four graph domain tasks: super-pixel graph classification, node classification, link prediction, and graph regression. The experimental results consistently demonstrate that our method improves model performance across a variety of baseline GNN models for all four tasks.

ERAGent: Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Language Models with Improved Accuracy, Efficiency, and Personalization

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for language models significantly improves language understanding systems. The basic retrieval-then-read pipeline of response generation has evolved into a more extended process due to the integration of various components, sometimes even forming loop structures. Despite its advancements in improving response accuracy, challenges like poor retrieval quality for complex questions that require the search of multifaceted semantic information, inefficiencies in knowledge re-retrieval during long-term serving, and lack of personalized responses persist. Motivated by transcending these limitations, we introduce ERAGent, a cutting-edge framework that embodies an advancement in the RAG area. Our contribution is the introduction of the synergistically operated module: Enhanced Question Rewriter and Knowledge Filter, for better retrieval quality. Retrieval Trigger is incorporated to curtail extraneous external knowledge retrieval without sacrificing response quality. ERAGent also personalizes responses by incorporating a learned user profile. The efficiency and personalization characteristics of ERAGent are supported by the Experiential Learner module which makes the AI assistant being capable of expanding its knowledge and modeling user profile incrementally. Rigorous evaluations across six datasets and three question-answering tasks prove ERAGent's superior accuracy, efficiency, and personalization, emphasizing its potential to advance the RAG field and its applicability in practical systems.

DST-GTN: Dynamic Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer Network for Traffic Forecasting

Accurate traffic forecasting is essential for effective urban planning and congestion management. Deep learning (DL) approaches have gained colossal success in traffic forecasting but still face challenges in capturing the intricacies of traffic dynamics. In this paper, we identify and address this challenges by emphasizing that spatial features are inherently dynamic and change over time. A novel in-depth feature representation, called Dynamic Spatio-Temporal (Dyn-ST) features, is introduced, which encapsulates spatial characteristics across varying times. Moreover, a Dynamic Spatio-Temporal Graph Transformer Network (DST-GTN) is proposed by capturing Dyn-ST features and other dynamic adjacency relations between intersections. The DST-GTN can model dynamic ST relationships between nodes accurately and refine the representation of global and local ST characteristics by adopting adaptive weights in low-pass and all-pass filters, enabling the extraction of Dyn-ST features from traffic time-series data. Through numerical experiments on public datasets, the DST-GTN achieves state-of-the-art performance for a range of traffic forecasting tasks and demonstrates enhanced stability.

Causal Disentanglement for Regulating Social Influence Bias in Social Recommendation

Social recommendation systems face the problem of social influence bias, which can lead to an overemphasis on recommending items that friends have interacted with. Addressing this problem is crucial, and existing methods often rely on techniques such as weight adjustment or leveraging unbiased data to eliminate this bias. However, we argue that not all biases are detrimental, i.e., some items recommended by friends may align with the user's interests. Blindly eliminating such biases could undermine these positive effects, potentially diminishing recommendation accuracy. In this paper, we propose a Causal Disentanglement-based framework for Regulating Social influence Bias in social recommendation, named CDRSB, to improve recommendation performance. From the perspective of causal inference, we find that the user social network could be regarded as a confounder between the user and item embeddings (treatment) and ratings (outcome). Due to the presence of this social network confounder, two paths exist from user and item embeddings to ratings: a non-causal social influence path and a causal interest path. Building upon this insight, we propose a disentangled encoder that focuses on disentangling user and item embeddings into interest and social influence embeddings. Mutual information-based objectives are designed to enhance the distinctiveness of these disentangled embeddings, eliminating redundant information. Additionally, a regulatory decoder that employs a weight calculation module to dynamically learn the weights of social influence embeddings for effectively regulating social influence bias has been designed. Experimental results on four large-scale real-world datasets Ciao, Epinions, Dianping, and Douban book demonstrate the effectiveness of CDRSB compared to state-of-the-art baselines.