Multi-task Equidistant Embedding for Feature Interaction Analysis

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional digital analytics systems face limitations in predicting future events due to loss of accurate relationships between features when extracting higher-order interactions, reliance on expensive manually designed features, and inefficiency in handling imbalanced data, leading to inaccurate results and inefficient resource usage.

Innovation Solution

The implementation of multi-task equidistant embedding techniques that enforce equidistant relationships among features within a category, using a combination of shared and exclusive network representations to extract and utilize feature interactions, thereby improving the accuracy and efficiency of predicting future events.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Difficulty of detecting and measuring

If conventional techniques extract higher-order interactions from input information, then feature interaction analysis is performed, but accurate relationships between features are lost

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvefeature interaction analysisVSAvoiddistance relationships between features
Core Design Contradiction:
Difficulty of detecting and measuringVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies parameter changes by transforming categorical features into equidistant embedding representations where the distance between embeddings reflects the relationship between features. This transformation preserves distance relationships while enabling higher-order interaction extraction through neural network layers that process these embedded representations.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The equidistant embedding acts as an intermediary representation between the original categorical features and the neural network processing layers. This intermediary preserves the structural relationships of the original data while providing a format suitable for extracting higher-order interactions through standard neural network operations.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Measurement precision

If manually designed features are used for a particular task, then task-specific accuracy is improved, but features cannot be applied to other tasks and computational cost increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvetask-specific prediction accuracyVSAvoidfeature applicability across tasks
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The equidistant embedding layer creates a universal representation that can be applied across multiple tasks. The shared embedding layer learns general patterns from data that are useful for various prediction tasks, eliminating the need to redesign features for each task while maintaining high accuracy through the equidistant property that preserves feature relationships.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

By changing the representation parameters from manually designed task-specific features to learned equidistant embeddings, the system achieves both task-specific accuracy and cross-task applicability. The embedding parameters are learned automatically from data, making them adaptable to different tasks without manual redesign.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

3Measurement precision

If manually designed features are used, then prediction accuracy for specific tasks is improved, but sensitivity to noise and missing values increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprediction accuracyVSAvoidsensitivity to noise or missing values
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The equidistant embedding layer performs self-service by automatically learning robust representations from data without requiring manual feature engineering. The learned embeddings inherently capture patterns that are resistant to noise and missing values, as the training process automatically adjusts to handle these conditions in the underlying data.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

The transformation to equidistant embeddings changes the parameter representation from raw categorical data to a normalized embedding space. This parameter change makes the representation more robust to noise and missing values, as the embedding captures semantic relationships rather than relying on specific value representations that could be affected by data quality issues.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

4Productivity

If conventional techniques handle imbalanced data, then computation resources are allocated efficiently, but accuracy for minority tasks deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecomputational resource efficiencyVSAvoidprediction accuracy for minority tasks
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The shared equidistant embedding layer serves multiple tasks simultaneously, including both majority and minority tasks. By learning a universal representation that captures general patterns in the data, the system can accurately predict outcomes for minority tasks without requiring separate models or manual feature engineering for each task, thus improving accuracy while maintaining computational efficiency.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS12182713B2Multi-task equidistant embedding
Publication Date: 2024.12.31 ADOBE INC
  • US12182713B2 patent drawing
  • US12182713B2 patent drawing
  • US12182713B2 patent drawing

AI summary

Systems and techniques for multi-task equidistant embedding are described that process categorical feature data to explore feature interactions. A digital analytics system enforces an equidistant relationship among features within a category while extracting high-order feature interactions by punishing both positive correlations and negative correlations among low-dimensional representations of different features. By enforcing an equidistant embedding, information is retained and accuracy is increased while higher order feature interactions are determined. Further, the digital analytics system shares knowledge among different tasks by connecting a shared network representation common to multiple tasks with exclusive network representations specific to particular tasks.