4,282 research outputs found
LambdaOpt: Learn to Regularize Recommender Models in Finer Levels
Recommendation models mainly deal with categorical variables, such as
user/item ID and attributes. Besides the high-cardinality issue, the
interactions among such categorical variables are usually long-tailed, with the
head made up of highly frequent values and a long tail of rare ones. This
phenomenon results in the data sparsity issue, making it essential to
regularize the models to ensure generalization. The common practice is to
employ grid search to manually tune regularization hyperparameters based on the
validation data. However, it requires non-trivial efforts and large computation
resources to search the whole candidate space; even so, it may not lead to the
optimal choice, for which different parameters should have different
regularization strengths. In this paper, we propose a hyperparameter
optimization method, LambdaOpt, which automatically and adaptively enforces
regularization during training. Specifically, it updates the regularization
coefficients based on the performance of validation data. With LambdaOpt, the
notorious tuning of regularization hyperparameters can be avoided; more
importantly, it allows fine-grained regularization (i.e. each parameter can
have an individualized regularization coefficient), leading to better
generalized models. We show how to employ LambdaOpt on matrix factorization, a
classical model that is representative of a large family of recommender models.
Extensive experiments on two public benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of
our method in boosting the performance of top-K recommendation.Comment: Accepted by KDD 201
Current Challenges and Visions in Music Recommender Systems Research
Music recommender systems (MRS) have experienced a boom in recent years,
thanks to the emergence and success of online streaming services, which
nowadays make available almost all music in the world at the user's fingertip.
While today's MRS considerably help users to find interesting music in these
huge catalogs, MRS research is still facing substantial challenges. In
particular when it comes to build, incorporate, and evaluate recommendation
strategies that integrate information beyond simple user--item interactions or
content-based descriptors, but dig deep into the very essence of listener
needs, preferences, and intentions, MRS research becomes a big endeavor and
related publications quite sparse.
The purpose of this trends and survey article is twofold. We first identify
and shed light on what we believe are the most pressing challenges MRS research
is facing, from both academic and industry perspectives. We review the state of
the art towards solving these challenges and discuss its limitations. Second,
we detail possible future directions and visions we contemplate for the further
evolution of the field. The article should therefore serve two purposes: giving
the interested reader an overview of current challenges in MRS research and
providing guidance for young researchers by identifying interesting, yet
under-researched, directions in the field
NEXT LEVEL: A COURSE RECOMMENDER SYSTEM BASED ON CAREER INTERESTS
Skills-based hiring is a talent management approach that empowers employers to align recruitment around business results, rather than around credentials and title. It starts with employers identifying the particular skills required for a role, and then screening and evaluating candidates’ competencies against those requirements. With the recent rise in employers adopting skills-based hiring practices, it has become integral for students to take courses that improve their marketability and support their long-term career success. A 2017 survey of over 32,000 students at 43 randomly selected institutions found that only 34% of students believe they will graduate with the skills and knowledge required to be successful in the job market. Furthermore, the study found that while 96% of chief academic officers believe that their institutions are very or somewhat effective at preparing students for the workforce, only 11% of business leaders strongly agree [11]. An implication of the misalignment is that college graduates lack the skills that companies need and value. Fortunately, the rise of skills-based hiring provides an opportunity for universities and students to establish and follow clearer classroom-to-career pathways. To this end, this paper presents a course recommender system that aims to improve students’ career readiness by suggesting relevant skills and courses based on their unique career interests
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