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Learning to Recommend With Multiple Cascading Behaviors | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

Learning to Recommend With Multiple Cascading Behaviors


Abstract:

Most existing recommender systems leverage user behavior data of one type only, such as the purchase behavior in E-commerce that is directly related to the business Key P...Show More

Abstract:

Most existing recommender systems leverage user behavior data of one type only, such as the purchase behavior in E-commerce that is directly related to the business Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of conversion rate. Besides the key behavioral data, we argue that other forms of user behaviors also provide valuable signal, such as views, clicks, adding a product to shopping carts and so on. They should be taken into account properly to provide quality recommendation for users. In this work, we contribute a new solution named short for Neural Multi-Task Recommendation (NMTR) for learning recommender systems from user multi-behavior data. We develop a neural network model to capture the complicated and multi-type interactions between users and items. In particular, our model accounts for the cascading relationship among different types of behaviors (e.g., a user must click on a product before purchasing it). To fully exploit the signal in the data of multiple types of behaviors, we perform a joint optimization based on the multi-task learning framework, where the optimization on a behavior is treated as a task. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate that NMTR significantly outperforms state-of-the-art recommender systems that are designed to learn from both single-behavior data and multi-behavior data. Further analysis shows that modeling multiple behaviors is particularly useful for providing recommendation for sparse users that have very few interactions.
Published in: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering ( Volume: 33, Issue: 6, 01 June 2021)
Page(s): 2588 - 2601
Date of Publication: 10 December 2019

ISSN Information:

Funding Agency:

Author image of Chen Gao
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Chen Gao received the BS degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2016. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His reserach interests include recommender systems, data mining, and data privacy. He has publications appeared in several top conferences such as WWW, ICDE, KDD, and SIGIR.
Chen Gao received the BS degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2016. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His reserach interests include recommender systems, data mining, and data privacy. He has publications appeared in several top conferences such as WWW, ICDE, KDD, and SIGIR.View more
Author image of Xiangnan He
School of Information Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
Xiangnan He received the PhD degree in computer science from National University of Singapore. He is currently a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests span recommender system, information retrieval, natural language processing and multi-media. His work on recommender system has received the Best Paper Award Honorable Mention in WWW 2018 and SIGIR 2016....Show More
Xiangnan He received the PhD degree in computer science from National University of Singapore. He is currently a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests span recommender system, information retrieval, natural language processing and multi-media. His work on recommender system has received the Best Paper Award Honorable Mention in WWW 2018 and SIGIR 2016....View more
Author image of Dahua Gan
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 15213 PA, USA
Dahua Gan received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2018. He is currently working toward the MS degree in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research focus on data mining.
Dahua Gan received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2018. He is currently working toward the MS degree in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research focus on data mining.View more
Author image of Xiangning Chen
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Xiangning Chen is currently working toward the undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His work mainly focuses on recommender systems.
Xiangning Chen is currently working toward the undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His work mainly focuses on recommender systems.View more
Author image of Fuli Feng
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Fuli Feng received the BE degree from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Baihang University, Beijing, in 2015. He is a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. His research interests include information retrieval, data mining, and multi-media processing. He has more than 10 publications appeared in several top conferences such as SIGIR, WWW, and MM. His work on Bayesian ...Show More
Fuli Feng received the BE degree from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Baihang University, Beijing, in 2015. He is a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. His research interests include information retrieval, data mining, and multi-media processing. He has more than 10 publications appeared in several top conferences such as SIGIR, WWW, and MM. His work on Bayesian ...View more
Author image of Yong Li
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Yong Li (M’2009-SM’2016) received the BS degree in electronics and information engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2007 and the PhD degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2012. He is currently a faculty member of the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He has served as general chair, TPC chair, TPC member for sev...Show More
Yong Li (M’2009-SM’2016) received the BS degree in electronics and information engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2007 and the PhD degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2012. He is currently a faculty member of the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He has served as general chair, TPC chair, TPC member for sev...View more
Author image of Tat-Seng Chua
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Tat-Seng Chua received the PhD degree from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He is the KITHCT chair professor with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. He was the acting and founding dean of the School from 1998 – 2000. His main research interests include multimedia information retrieval and social media analytics. In particular, his research focuses on the extraction, retrieval and question-a...Show More
Tat-Seng Chua received the PhD degree from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He is the KITHCT chair professor with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. He was the acting and founding dean of the School from 1998 – 2000. His main research interests include multimedia information retrieval and social media analytics. In particular, his research focuses on the extraction, retrieval and question-a...View more
Author image of Lina Yao
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia
Lina Yao is currently a senior lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Her research interests include data mining and machine learning applications with the focuses on Internet of Things analytics, recommender systems, human activity recognition, and brain computer interface.
Lina Yao is currently a senior lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Her research interests include data mining and machine learning applications with the focuses on Internet of Things analytics, recommender systems, human activity recognition, and brain computer interface.View more
Author image of Yang Song
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia
Yang Song received the BEng degree in computer engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Sydney, in 2013. She is a lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. She received the highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher ...Show More
Yang Song received the BEng degree in computer engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Sydney, in 2013. She is a lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. She received the highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher ...View more
Author image of Depeng Jin
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Depeng Jin (M’2009) received the BS and PhD degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1999, respectively both in electronics engineering. Now he is an associate professor at Tsinghua University and vice chair of Department of Electronic Engineering. He was awarded National Scientific and Technological Innovation Prize (Second Class), in 2002. His research interests include telecommunications, high-spee...Show More
Depeng Jin (M’2009) received the BS and PhD degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1999, respectively both in electronics engineering. Now he is an associate professor at Tsinghua University and vice chair of Department of Electronic Engineering. He was awarded National Scientific and Technological Innovation Prize (Second Class), in 2002. His research interests include telecommunications, high-spee...View more

1 Introduction

In online information systems, users interact with a system in a variety of forms. For example, in an E-commerce website, a user can click on a product, add a product to shopping cart, purchase a product and so on.

Author image of Chen Gao
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Chen Gao received the BS degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2016. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His reserach interests include recommender systems, data mining, and data privacy. He has publications appeared in several top conferences such as WWW, ICDE, KDD, and SIGIR.
Chen Gao received the BS degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2016. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His reserach interests include recommender systems, data mining, and data privacy. He has publications appeared in several top conferences such as WWW, ICDE, KDD, and SIGIR.View more
Author image of Xiangnan He
School of Information Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
Xiangnan He received the PhD degree in computer science from National University of Singapore. He is currently a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests span recommender system, information retrieval, natural language processing and multi-media. His work on recommender system has received the Best Paper Award Honorable Mention in WWW 2018 and SIGIR 2016. Moreover, he has served as the PC member for top-tier conferences including SIGIR, WWW, MM, KDD, WSDM, CIKM, AAAI, and ACL, and the invited reviewer for prestigious journals including the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, the ACM Transactions on Information Systems, the ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data, the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and the World Wide Web Journal. He is a member of the IEEE.
Xiangnan He received the PhD degree in computer science from National University of Singapore. He is currently a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests span recommender system, information retrieval, natural language processing and multi-media. His work on recommender system has received the Best Paper Award Honorable Mention in WWW 2018 and SIGIR 2016. Moreover, he has served as the PC member for top-tier conferences including SIGIR, WWW, MM, KDD, WSDM, CIKM, AAAI, and ACL, and the invited reviewer for prestigious journals including the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, the ACM Transactions on Information Systems, the ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data, the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and the World Wide Web Journal. He is a member of the IEEE.View more
Author image of Dahua Gan
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 15213 PA, USA
Dahua Gan received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2018. He is currently working toward the MS degree in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research focus on data mining.
Dahua Gan received the BS degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2018. He is currently working toward the MS degree in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research focus on data mining.View more
Author image of Xiangning Chen
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Xiangning Chen is currently working toward the undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His work mainly focuses on recommender systems.
Xiangning Chen is currently working toward the undergraduate degree in Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. His work mainly focuses on recommender systems.View more
Author image of Fuli Feng
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Fuli Feng received the BE degree from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Baihang University, Beijing, in 2015. He is a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. His research interests include information retrieval, data mining, and multi-media processing. He has more than 10 publications appeared in several top conferences such as SIGIR, WWW, and MM. His work on Bayesian Personalized Ranking has received the Best Poster Award of WWW 2018. Moreover, he has been served as the PC member and external reviewer for several top conferences including SIGIR, ACL, KDD, IJCAI, AAAI, WSDM etc.
Fuli Feng received the BE degree from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Baihang University, Beijing, in 2015. He is a research fellow with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. His research interests include information retrieval, data mining, and multi-media processing. He has more than 10 publications appeared in several top conferences such as SIGIR, WWW, and MM. His work on Bayesian Personalized Ranking has received the Best Poster Award of WWW 2018. Moreover, he has been served as the PC member and external reviewer for several top conferences including SIGIR, ACL, KDD, IJCAI, AAAI, WSDM etc.View more
Author image of Yong Li
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Yong Li (M’2009-SM’2016) received the BS degree in electronics and information engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2007 and the PhD degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2012. He is currently a faculty member of the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He has served as general chair, TPC chair, TPC member for several international workshops and conferences, and he serves in the editorial board of two IEEE journals. His papers have total citations more than 5200. Among them, ten are ESI highly cited papers in computer science, and four receive conference best paper (run-up) awards. He received IEEE 2016 ComSoc Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Researchers and Young Talent Program of China Association for Science and Technology. He is a senior member of the IEEE.
Yong Li (M’2009-SM’2016) received the BS degree in electronics and information engineering from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2007 and the PhD degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2012. He is currently a faculty member of the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He has served as general chair, TPC chair, TPC member for several international workshops and conferences, and he serves in the editorial board of two IEEE journals. His papers have total citations more than 5200. Among them, ten are ESI highly cited papers in computer science, and four receive conference best paper (run-up) awards. He received IEEE 2016 ComSoc Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Researchers and Young Talent Program of China Association for Science and Technology. He is a senior member of the IEEE.View more
Author image of Tat-Seng Chua
School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Tat-Seng Chua received the PhD degree from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He is the KITHCT chair professor with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. He was the acting and founding dean of the School from 1998 – 2000. His main research interests include multimedia information retrieval and social media analytics. In particular, his research focuses on the extraction, retrieval and question-answering (QA) of text and rich media arising from the web and multiple social networks. He is the co-director of NExT, a joint Center between NUS and Tsinghua University to develop technologies for live social media search. He is the 2015 winner of the prestigious ACM SIGMM Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications. He is the chair of steering committee of ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ICMR) and Multimedia Modeling (MMM) conference series. He is also the general co-chair of ACM Multimedia 2005, ACM CIVR (now ACM ICMR) 2005, ACM SIGIR 2008, and ACMWeb Science 2015. He serves in the editorial boards of four international journals. He is the co-founder of two technology startup companies in Singapore.
Tat-Seng Chua received the PhD degree from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He is the KITHCT chair professor with the School of Computing, National University of Singapore. He was the acting and founding dean of the School from 1998 – 2000. His main research interests include multimedia information retrieval and social media analytics. In particular, his research focuses on the extraction, retrieval and question-answering (QA) of text and rich media arising from the web and multiple social networks. He is the co-director of NExT, a joint Center between NUS and Tsinghua University to develop technologies for live social media search. He is the 2015 winner of the prestigious ACM SIGMM Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications. He is the chair of steering committee of ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval (ICMR) and Multimedia Modeling (MMM) conference series. He is also the general co-chair of ACM Multimedia 2005, ACM CIVR (now ACM ICMR) 2005, ACM SIGIR 2008, and ACMWeb Science 2015. He serves in the editorial boards of four international journals. He is the co-founder of two technology startup companies in Singapore.View more
Author image of Lina Yao
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia
Lina Yao is currently a senior lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Her research interests include data mining and machine learning applications with the focuses on Internet of Things analytics, recommender systems, human activity recognition, and brain computer interface.
Lina Yao is currently a senior lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Her research interests include data mining and machine learning applications with the focuses on Internet of Things analytics, recommender systems, human activity recognition, and brain computer interface.View more
Author image of Yang Song
School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia
Yang Song received the BEng degree in computer engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Sydney, in 2013. She is a lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. She received the highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), in 2015, and was an ARC DECRA fellow with the University of Sydney before joining UNSW, in 2018. She also received the Engineering Deans Research Award, the University of Sydney, in 2017.
Yang Song received the BEng degree in computer engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and received the PhD degree in computer science from the University of Sydney, in 2013. She is a lecturer with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. She received the highly competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), in 2015, and was an ARC DECRA fellow with the University of Sydney before joining UNSW, in 2018. She also received the Engineering Deans Research Award, the University of Sydney, in 2017.View more
Author image of Depeng Jin
Department of Electronic Engineering, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Depeng Jin (M’2009) received the BS and PhD degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1999, respectively both in electronics engineering. Now he is an associate professor at Tsinghua University and vice chair of Department of Electronic Engineering. He was awarded National Scientific and Technological Innovation Prize (Second Class), in 2002. His research interests include telecommunications, high-speed networks, ASIC design, and future Internet architecture. He is a member of the IEEE.
Depeng Jin (M’2009) received the BS and PhD degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1995 and 1999, respectively both in electronics engineering. Now he is an associate professor at Tsinghua University and vice chair of Department of Electronic Engineering. He was awarded National Scientific and Technological Innovation Prize (Second Class), in 2002. His research interests include telecommunications, high-speed networks, ASIC design, and future Internet architecture. He is a member of the IEEE.View more

References

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