Where to Move Next: Zero-shot Generalization of LLMs for Next POI Recommendation

Next Point-of-interest (POI) recommendation provides valuable suggestions for users to explore their surrounding environment. Existing studies rely on building recommendation models from large-scale users' check-in data, which is task-specific and needs extensive computational resources. Recently, the pretrained large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant advancements in various NLP tasks and have also been investigated for recommendation scenarios. However, the generalization abilities of LLMs still are unexplored to address the next POI recommendations, where users' geographical movement patterns should be extracted. Although there are studies that leverage LLMs for next-item recommendations, they fail to consider the geographical influence and sequential transitions. Hence, they cannot effectively solve the next POI recommendation task. To this end, we design novel prompting strategies and conduct empirical studies to assess the capability of LLMs, e.g., ChatGPT, for predicting a user's next check-in. Specifically, we consider several essential factors in human movement behaviors, including user geographical preference, spatial distance, and sequential transitions, and formulate the recommendation task as a ranking problem. Through extensive experiments on two widely used real-world datasets, we derive several key findings. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that LLMs have promising zero-shot recommendation abilities and can provide accurate and reasonable predictions. We also reveal that LLMs cannot accurately comprehend geographical context information and are sensitive to the order of presentation of candidate POIs, which shows the limitations of LLMs and necessitates further research on robust human mobility reasoning mechanisms.

A Simple Yet Effective Approach for Diversified Session-Based Recommendation

Session-based recommender systems (SBRSs) have become extremely popular in view of the core capability of capturing short-term and dynamic user preferences. However, most SBRSs primarily maximize recommendation accuracy but ignore user minor preferences, thus leading to filter bubbles in the long run. Only a handful of works, being devoted to improving diversity, depend on unique model designs and calibrated loss functions, which cannot be easily adapted to existing accuracy-oriented SBRSs. It is thus worthwhile to come up with a simple yet effective design that can be used as a plugin to facilitate existing SBRSs on generating a more diversified list in the meantime preserving the recommendation accuracy. In this case, we propose an end-to-end framework applied for every existing representative (accuracy-oriented) SBRS, called diversified category-aware attentive SBRS (DCA-SBRS), to boost the performance on recommendation diversity. It consists of two novel designs: a model-agnostic diversity-oriented loss function, and a non-invasive category-aware attention mechanism. Extensive experiments on three datasets showcase that our framework helps existing SBRSs achieve extraordinary performance in terms of recommendation diversity and comprehensive performance, without significantly deteriorating recommendation accuracy compared to state-of-the-art accuracy-oriented SBRSs.

Multi-Task Learning with Multi-Task Optimization

Multi-task learning solves multiple correlated tasks. However, conflicts may exist between them. In such circumstances, a single solution can rarely optimize all the tasks, leading to performance trade-offs. To arrive at a set of optimized yet well-distributed models that collectively embody different trade-offs in one algorithmic pass, this paper proposes to view Pareto multi-task learning through the lens of multi-task optimization. Multi-task learning is first cast as a multi-objective optimization problem, which is then decomposed into a diverse set of unconstrained scalar-valued subproblems. These subproblems are solved jointly using a novel multi-task gradient descent method, whose uniqueness lies in the iterative transfer of model parameters among the subproblems during the course of optimization. A theorem proving faster convergence through the inclusion of such transfers is presented. We investigate the proposed multi-task learning with multi-task optimization for solving various problem settings including image classification, scene understanding, and multi-target regression. Comprehensive experiments confirm that the proposed method significantly advances the state-of-the-art in discovering sets of Pareto-optimized models. Notably, on the large image dataset we tested on, namely NYUv2, the hypervolume convergence achieved by our method was found to be nearly two times faster than the next-best among the state-of-the-art.

Precise-Physics Driven Text-to-3D Generation

Text-to-3D generation has shown great promise in generating novel 3D content based on given text prompts. However, existing generative methods mostly focus on geometric or visual plausibility while ignoring precise physics perception for the generated 3D shapes. This greatly hinders the practicality of generated 3D shapes in real-world applications. In this work, we propose Phy3DGen, a precise-physics-driven text-to-3D generation method. By analyzing the solid mechanics of generated 3D shapes, we reveal that the 3D shapes generated by existing text-to-3D generation methods are impractical for real-world applications as the generated 3D shapes do not conform to the laws of physics. To this end, we leverage 3D diffusion models to provide 3D shape priors and design a data-driven differentiable physics layer to optimize 3D shape priors with solid mechanics. This allows us to optimize geometry efficiently and learn precise physics information about 3D shapes at the same time. Experimental results demonstrate that our method can consider both geometric plausibility and precise physics perception, further bridging 3D virtual modeling and precise physical worlds.

Inverse Transfer Multiobjective Optimization

Transfer optimization enables data-efficient optimization of a target task by leveraging experiential priors from related source tasks. This is especially useful in multiobjective optimization settings where a set of trade-off solutions is sought under tight evaluation budgets. In this paper, we introduce a novel concept of inverse transfer in multiobjective optimization. Inverse transfer stands out by employing probabilistic inverse models to map performance vectors in the objective space to population search distributions in task-specific decision space, facilitating knowledge transfer through objective space unification. Building upon this idea, we introduce the first Inverse Transfer Multiobjective Evolutionary Optimizer (invTrEMO). A key highlight of invTrEMO is its ability to harness the common objective functions prevalent in many application areas, even when decision spaces do not precisely align between tasks. This allows invTrEMO to uniquely and effectively utilize information from heterogeneous source tasks as well. Furthermore, invTrEMO yields high-precision inverse models as a significant byproduct, enabling the generation of tailored solutions on-demand based on user preferences. Empirical studies on multi- and many-objective benchmark problems, as well as a practical case study, showcase the faster convergence rate and modelling accuracy of the invTrEMO relative to state-of-the-art evolutionary and Bayesian optimization algorithms. The source code of the invTrEMO is made available at https://github.com/LiuJ-2023/invTrEMO.

Dynamic In-Context Learning from Nearest Neighbors for Bundle Generation

Product bundling has evolved into a crucial marketing strategy in e-commerce. However, current studies are limited to generating (1) fixed-size or single bundles, and most importantly, (2) bundles that do not reflect consistent user intents, thus being less intelligible or useful to users. This paper explores two interrelated tasks, i.e., personalized bundle generation and the underlying intent inference based on users' interactions in a session, leveraging the logical reasoning capability of large language models. We introduce a dynamic in-context learning paradigm, which enables ChatGPT to seek tailored and dynamic lessons from closely related sessions as demonstrations while performing tasks in the target session. Specifically, it first harnesses retrieval augmented generation to identify nearest neighbor sessions for each target session. Then, proper prompts are designed to guide ChatGPT to perform the two tasks on neighbor sessions. To enhance reliability and mitigate the hallucination issue, we develop (1) a self-correction strategy to foster mutual improvement in both tasks without supervision signals; and (2) an auto-feedback mechanism to recurrently offer dynamic supervision based on the distinct mistakes made by ChatGPT on various neighbor sessions. Thus, the target session can receive customized and dynamic lessons for improved performance by observing the demonstrations of its neighbor sessions. Finally, experimental results on three real-world datasets verify the effectiveness of our methods on both tasks. Additionally, the inferred intents can prove beneficial for other intriguing downstream tasks, such as crafting appealing bundle names.

FedCompetitors: Harmonious Collaboration in Federated Learning with Competing Participants

Federated learning (FL) provides a privacy-preserving approach for collaborative training of machine learning models. Given the potential data heterogeneity, it is crucial to select appropriate collaborators for each FL participant (FL-PT) based on data complementarity. Recent studies have addressed this challenge. Similarly, it is imperative to consider the inter-individual relationships among FL-PTs where some FL-PTs engage in competition. Although FL literature has acknowledged the significance of this scenario, practical methods for establishing FL ecosystems remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we extend a principle from the balance theory, namely ``the friend of my enemy is my enemy'', to ensure the absence of conflicting interests within an FL ecosystem. The extended principle and the resulting problem are formulated via graph theory and integer linear programming. A polynomial-time algorithm is proposed to determine the collaborators of each FL-PT. The solution guarantees high scalability, allowing even competing FL-PTs to smoothly join the ecosystem without conflict of interest. The proposed framework jointly considers competition and data heterogeneity. Extensive experiments on real-world and synthetic data demonstrate its efficacy compared to five alternative approaches, and its ability to establish efficient collaboration networks among FL-PTs.

PR-NeuS: A Prior-based Residual Learning Paradigm for Fast Multi-view Neural Surface Reconstruction

Neural surfaces learning has shown impressive performance in multi-view surface reconstruction. However, most existing methods use large multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) to train their models from scratch, resulting in hours of training for a single scene. Recently, how to accelerate the neural surfaces learning has received a lot of attention and remains an open problem. In this work, we propose a prior-based residual learning paradigm for fast multi-view neural surface reconstruction. This paradigm consists of two optimization stages. In the first stage, we propose to leverage generalization models to generate a basis signed distance function (SDF) field. This initial field can be quickly obtained by fusing multiple local SDF fields produced by generalization models. This provides a coarse global geometry prior. Based on this prior, in the second stage, a fast residual learning strategy based on hash-encoding networks is proposed to encode an offset SDF field for the basis SDF field. Moreover, we introduce a prior-guided sampling scheme to help the residual learning stage converge better, and thus recover finer structures. With our designed paradigm, experimental results show that our method only takes about 3 minutes to reconstruct the surface of a single scene, while achieving competitive surface quality. Our code will be released upon publication.

Large Language Models for Intent-Driven Session Recommendations

Intent-aware session recommendation (ISR) is pivotal in discerning user intents within sessions for precise predictions. Traditional approaches, however, face limitations due to their presumption of a uniform number of intents across all sessions. This assumption overlooks the dynamic nature of user sessions, where the number and type of intentions can significantly vary. In addition, these methods typically operate in latent spaces, thus hinder the model's transparency.Addressing these challenges, we introduce a novel ISR approach, utilizing the advanced reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs). First, this approach begins by generating an initial prompt that guides LLMs to predict the next item in a session, based on the varied intents manifested in user sessions. Then, to refine this process, we introduce an innovative prompt optimization mechanism that iteratively self-reflects and adjusts prompts. Furthermore, our prompt selection module, built upon the LLMs' broad adaptability, swiftly selects the most optimized prompts across diverse domains. This new paradigm empowers LLMs to discern diverse user intents at a semantic level, leading to more accurate and interpretable session recommendations. Our extensive experiments on three real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, marking a significant advancement in ISR systems.

Generalizable Neural Physics Solvers by Baldwinian Evolution

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) are at the forefront of scientific machine learning, making possible the creation of machine intelligence that is cognizant of physical laws and able to accurately simulate them. In this paper, the potential of discovering PINNs that generalize over an entire family of physics tasks is studied, for the first time, through a biological lens of the Baldwin effect. Drawing inspiration from the neurodevelopment of precocial species that have evolved to learn, predict and react quickly to their environment, we envision PINNs that are pre-wired with connection strengths inducing strong biases towards efficient learning of physics. To this end, evolutionary selection pressure (guided by proficiency over a family of tasks) is coupled with lifetime learning (to specialize on a smaller subset of those tasks) to produce PINNs that demonstrate fast and physics-compliant prediction capabilities across a range of empirically challenging problem instances. The Baldwinian approach achieves an order of magnitude improvement in prediction accuracy at a fraction of the computation cost compared to state-of-the-art results with PINNs meta-learned by gradient descent. This paper marks a leap forward in the meta-learning of PINNs as generalizable physics solvers.