2,220 research outputs found
Knowledge-aware Complementary Product Representation Learning
Learning product representations that reflect complementary relationship
plays a central role in e-commerce recommender system. In the absence of the
product relationships graph, which existing methods rely on, there is a need to
detect the complementary relationships directly from noisy and sparse customer
purchase activities. Furthermore, unlike simple relationships such as
similarity, complementariness is asymmetric and non-transitive. Standard usage
of representation learning emphasizes on only one set of embedding, which is
problematic for modelling such properties of complementariness. We propose
using knowledge-aware learning with dual product embedding to solve the above
challenges. We encode contextual knowledge into product representation by
multi-task learning, to alleviate the sparsity issue. By explicitly modelling
with user bias terms, we separate the noise of customer-specific preferences
from the complementariness. Furthermore, we adopt the dual embedding framework
to capture the intrinsic properties of complementariness and provide geometric
interpretation motivated by the classic separating hyperplane theory. Finally,
we propose a Bayesian network structure that unifies all the components, which
also concludes several popular models as special cases. The proposed method
compares favourably to state-of-art methods, in downstream classification and
recommendation tasks. We also develop an implementation that scales efficiently
to a dataset with millions of items and customers
MODELING LARGE-SCALE CROSS EFFECT IN CO-PURCHASE INCIDENCE: COMPARING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK TECHNIQUES AND MULTIVARIATE PROBIT MODELING
This dissertation examines cross-category effects in consumer purchases from the big data and analytics perspectives. It uses data from Nielsen Consumer Panel and Scanner databases for its investigations. With big data analytics it becomes possible to examine the cross effects of many product categories on each other. The number of categories whose cross effects are studied is called category scale or just scale in this dissertation. The larger the category scale the higher the number of categories whose cross effects are studied. This dissertation extends research on models of cross effects by (1) examining the performance of MVP model across category scale; (2) customizing artificial neural network (ANN) techniques for large-scale cross effect analysis; (3) examining the performance of ANN across scale; and (4) developing a conceptual model of spending habits as a source of cross effect heterogeneity. The results provide researchers and managers new knowledge about using the two techniques in large category scale settings The computational capabilities required by MVP models grow exponentially with scale and thus are more significantly limited by computational capabilities than are ANN models. In our experiments, for scales 4, 8, 16 and 32, using Nielsen data, MVP models could not be estimated using baskets with 16 and more categories. We attempted to and could calibrate ANN models, on the other hand, for both scales 16 and 32. Surprisingly, the predictive results of ANN models exhibit an inverted U relationship with scale. As an ancillary result we provide a method for determining the existence and extent of non-linear own and cross category effects on likelihood of purchase of a category using ANN models. Besides our empirical studies, we draw on the mental budgeting model and impulsive spending literature, to provide a conceptualization of consumer spending habits as a source of heterogeneity in cross effect context. Finally, after a discussion of conclusions and limitations, the dissertation concludes with a discussion of open questions for future research
Latent Space Model for Multi-Modal Social Data
With the emergence of social networking services, researchers enjoy the
increasing availability of large-scale heterogenous datasets capturing online
user interactions and behaviors. Traditional analysis of techno-social systems
data has focused mainly on describing either the dynamics of social
interactions, or the attributes and behaviors of the users. However,
overwhelming empirical evidence suggests that the two dimensions affect one
another, and therefore they should be jointly modeled and analyzed in a
multi-modal framework. The benefits of such an approach include the ability to
build better predictive models, leveraging social network information as well
as user behavioral signals. To this purpose, here we propose the Constrained
Latent Space Model (CLSM), a generalized framework that combines Mixed
Membership Stochastic Blockmodels (MMSB) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
incorporating a constraint that forces the latent space to concurrently
describe the multiple data modalities. We derive an efficient inference
algorithm based on Variational Expectation Maximization that has a
computational cost linear in the size of the network, thus making it feasible
to analyze massive social datasets. We validate the proposed framework on two
problems: prediction of social interactions from user attributes and behaviors,
and behavior prediction exploiting network information. We perform experiments
with a variety of multi-modal social systems, spanning location-based social
networks (Gowalla), social media services (Instagram, Orkut), e-commerce and
review sites (Amazon, Ciao), and finally citation networks (Cora). The results
indicate significant improvement in prediction accuracy over state of the art
methods, and demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed approach for
addressing a variety of different learning problems commonly occurring with
multi-modal social data.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 2 table
Modeling Cross Category Purchase Decision Making with Consumers’ Mental Budgeting Control Habit
Cross-category decision making is an ongoing research in decision science. Cross-category modeling is a powerful tool for big data and business analytics. Cross-category decision making involves evaluating multiple categories for complementary/substitutional utilities. This paper examines consumers’ mental budgeting control habit for its impact on cross purchase decisions. This factor has not been examined in existing cross modeling literature. This paper fits a base cross category model and a budgeting control habit cross model using a consumer grocery shopping dataset. The results show that by incorporating this variable in the cross model, model fit score and prediction accuracy are significantly improved. The budgeting control habit factor has significant moderating effects on price effects and cross price effects. In addition to providing the modeling technique, this paper also finds that consumers classify basket items into root and add-on categories. The common sense that price drop boosts sales is only true for the root category items. Price drop of add-on items may trigger consumers reconfiguring their basket items but not necessarily increase sales of the add-on items themselves
Deep Learning for Online Fashion: A Novel Solution for the Retail E-Commerce Industry
The online shopping experience for clothing can be further enhanced by implementing Deep Learning techniques, such as Computer Vision and personalized recommendation systems. Automation, as a principle, can be applied to solving problems surrounding efficacy, efficiency, and security. It also provides a layer of abstraction for the user during the online shopping experience. This research aims to apply Deep Learning methods and principles of automation to augment the e-commerce fashion market in a novel way. After using these methods, it was found that Convolutional Autoencoders and Item-to-Item Based Recommenders may be used to accurately and precisely recommend articles of clothing based on a users’ styling preferences
NEURAL networks and consumer behavior: NEURAL models, logistic regression, and the behavioral perspective model
This paper investigates the ability of connectionist models to explain consumer
behavior, focusing on the feedforward neural network model, and explores the possibility
of expanding the theoretical framework of the Behavioral Perspective Model to incorporate
connectionist constructs. Numerous neural network models of varying complexity are
developed to predict consumer loyalty as a crucial aspect of consumer behavior. Their
performance is compared with the more traditional logistic regression model and it is
found that neural networks offer consistent advantage over logistic regression in the
prediction of consumer loyalty. Independently determined Utilitarian and Informational
Reinforcement variables are shown tomake a noticeable contribution to the explanation of
consumer choice. The potential of connectionist models for predicting and explaining
consumer behavior is discussed and routes for future research are suggested to investigate
the predictive and explanatory capacity of connectionist models, such as neural network
models, and for the integration of these into consumer behavior analysis within the
theoretical framework of the Behavioral Perspective Mode
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