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ANewInstance-BasedLabelRankingApproach UsingtheMallowsModel 
WeiweiChengandEykeH ullermeier 
MathematicsandComputerScience UniversityofMarburg,Germany 
f 
cheng,eyke 
g 
@mathematik.uni-marburg.de 
Abstract. 
Inthispaper,weintroduceanewinstance-basedapproachto thelabelrankingproblem.Thisapproachisbasedonaprobabilitymodel onrankingswhichisknownastheMallowsmodelinstatistics.Proba- bilisticmodelingprovidesthebasisforatheoreticallysoundprediction procedureintheformofmaximumlikelihoodestimation.Moreover,it allowsforcomplementingpredictionsbydiversetypesofstatisticalinfor- mation,forexampleregardingthereliabilityofanestimation.Empirical experimentsshowthatourapproachiscompetitivetostart-of-the-art methodsforlabelrankingandperformsquitewelleveninthecaseof incompleterankinginformation. 
Keywords: 
Instance-basedlearning,Labelranking,Classication,Max- imumlikelihoodestimation 
1Introduction 
Thetopicoflearningpreferenceshasattractedincreasingattentionintherecent machinelearningliterature[1].Labelranking,aparticularpreferencelearning scenario,studiestheproblemoflearningamappingfrominstancestorankings overanitenumberofpredenedlabels.Itcanbeconsideredasanatural generalizationoftheconventionalclassicationproblem,whereonlyasingle labelisrequestedinsteadofarankingofalllabels. Variousapproachesforlabelrankinghavebeenproposedinrecentyears. Typically,theseareextensionsoflearningalgorithmsusedinbinaryclassica- tionproblems.Rankingbypairwisecomparison(RPC)isanaturalextensionof pairwiseclassication,inwhichbinarypreferencemodelsarelearnedforeach pairoflabels,andthepredictionsofthesemodelsarecombinedintoaranking ofalllabels[1].Twootherapproaches,constraintclassication(CC)andlog- linearmodelsforlabelranking(LL),seektolearnlinearutilityfunctionsfor eachindividuallabelinsteadofpreferencepredicatesforpairsoflabels[2,3]. Inthispaper,weareinterestedinanalternativetomodel-basedapproaches, namelytheuseofan 
instance-based 
approach.Instance-basedorcase-based learningalgorithmshavebeenappliedsuccessfullyinvariouselds,suchasma- chinelearningandpatternrecognition,foralongtime[4].Thesealgorithms simplystorethetrainingdata,oratleastaselectionthereof,anddeferthe 
 
processingofthisdatauntilanestimationforanewinstanceisrequested,a propertydistinguishingthemfromtypicalmodel-basedapproaches.Instance- basedapproachesthereforehaveanumberofpotentialadvantages,especiallyin thecontextofthelabelrankingproblem. Asaparticularadvantageofdelayedprocessing,theselearningmethodsmay estimatethetargetfunction 
locally 
insteadofinducingaglobalpredictionmodel fortheentireinputdomain(instancespace) 
X 
.Predictionsaretypicallyobtained usingonlyasmall,locallyrestrictedsubsetoftheentiretrainingdata,namely thoseexamplesthatareclosetothequery 
x 
P 
X 
(hence 
X 
mustbeendowedwith adistancemeasure).Theseexamplesarethen 
aggregated 
inareasonableway.As aggregatinganitesetofobjectsfromanoutputspace 
 
isoftenmuchsimpler thanrepresentingacomplete 
X 
3 
 
mappinginanexplicitway,instance-based methodsareespeciallyappealingif 
 
hasacomplexstructure. Inlabelranking, 
 
correspondstothesetofallrankingsofanunderlying labelset 
v 
.Torepresentan 
 
-valuedmapping,theaforementionedmodel-based approachesencodethismappingintermsofconventionalbinarymodels,either byalargesetofsuchmodelsintheoriginallabelspace 
v 
(RPC),orbya singlebinarymodelinanexpanded,high-dimensionalspace(CC,LL).Since forinstance-basedmethods,thereisnoneedtorepresentan 
X 
3 
 
mapping explicitly,suchmethodscanoperateontheoriginaltargetspace 
 
directly. Thepaperisorganizedasfollows:InSection2,weintroducetheproblem oflabelrankinginamoreformalway.Thecoreideaofourinstance-based approachtolabelranking,namelymaximumlikelihoodestimationbasedona specialprobabilitymodelforrankings,isdiscussedinSection4.Themodel itselfisintroducedbeforehandinSection3.Section5isdevotedtoexperimental results.ThepaperendswithconcludingremarksinSection6. 
2LabelRanking 
Labelrankingcanbeseenasanextensionoftheconventionalsettingofclassica- tion.Roughlyspeaking,theformerisobtainedfromthelatterthroughreplacing singleclasslabelsbycompletelabelrankings.So,insteadofassociatingevery instance 
x 
fromaninstancespace 
X 
withoneamonganitesetofclasslabels 
v 
= 
f 
 
1 
::: 
n 
g 
,wenowassociate 
x 
withatotalorderoftheclasslabels,that is,acomplete,transitive,andasymmetricrelation 
1 
x 
on 
v 
where 
 
i 
1 
x 
 
j 
indicatesthat 
 
i 
precedes 
 
j 
intherankingassociatedwith 
x 
.Itfollowsthata rankingcanbeconsideredasaspecialtypeofpreferencerelation,andtherefore weshallalsosaythat 
 
i 
1 
x 
 
j 
indicatesthat 
 
i 
is 
preferred 
to 
 
j 
giventhe instance 
x 
.Toillustrate,supposethatinstancesarestudents(characterizedby attributessuchassex,age,andmajorsubjectsinsecondaryschool)and 
1 
isa preferencerelationonaxedsetofstudyeldssuchasMath,CS,Physics. Formally,aranking 
1 
x 
canbeidentiedwithapermutation 
 
x 
oftheset 
f 
1 
:::n 
g 
.Itisconvenienttodene 
 
x 
suchthat 
 
x 
( 
i 
)= 
 
x 
( 
 
i 
)istheposition of 
 
i 
intheranking.Thispermutationencodesthe(groundtruth)ranking: 
 
 
 
1 
x 
(1) 
1 
x 
 
 
 
1 
x 
(2) 
1 
x 
::: 
1 
x 
 
 
 
1 
x 
( 
n 
) 
; 
 
where 
 
 
1 
x 
( 
j 
)istheindexofthelabelatposition 
j 
intheranking.Theclass ofpermutationsof 
f 
1 
:::n 
g 
(thesymmetricgroupoforder 
n 
)isdenotedby 
 
.Byabuseofterminology,thoughjustiedinlightoftheaboveone-to-one correspondence,werefertoelements 
 
P 
 
asbothpermutationsandrankings. Inanalogywiththeclassicationsetting,wedonotassumethatthereexists adeterministic 
X 
3 
 
mapping.Instead,everyinstanceisassociatedwitha 
probabilitydistribution 
over 
 
.Thismeansthat,foreach 
x 
P 
X 
,thereexistsa probabilitydistributionPr( 
¡j 
x 
)suchthat,forevery 
 
P 
 
, Pr( 
 
j 
x 
)(1) istheprobabilitythat 
 
x 
= 
 
. Thegoalinlabelrankingistolearna\labelranker"intheformofan 
X 
3 
 
mapping.Astrainingdata,alabelrankerusesasetofinstances 
x 
k 
, 
k 
= 1 
:::m 
,togetherwithinformationabouttheassociatedrankings 
 
x 
k 
.Ideally, completerankingsaregivenastraininginformation.Fromapracticalpointof view,however,itisalsoimportanttoallowforincompleteinformationinthe formofaranking 
 
 
 
1 
x 
( 
i 
1 
) 
1 
x 
 
 
 
1 
x 
( 
i 
2 
) 
1 
x 
::: 
1 
x 
 
 
 
1 
x 
( 
i 
k 
) 
; 
where 
f 
i 
1 
;i 
2 
:::i 
k 
g 
isasubsetoftheindexset 
f 
1 
:::n 
g 
suchthat1 
 
i 
1 
< i 
2 
<:::<i 
k 
 
n 
.Forexample,foraninstance 
x 
,itmightbeknownthat 
 
2 
1 
x 
 
1 
1 
x 
 
5 
,whilenopreferenceinformationisgivenaboutthelabels 
 
3 
or 
 
4 
. Toevaluatethepredictiveperformanceofalabelranker,asuitablelossfunc- tionon 
 
isneeded.Inthestatisticalliterature,severaldistancemeasuresfor rankingshavebeenproposed.Onecommonlyusedmeasureisthenumberof discordantpairs, 
D 
( 
; 
)= 
f 
( 
i;j 
) 
j 
i<j; 
( 
i 
) 
> 
( 
j 
)and 
 
( 
i 
) 
< 
( 
j 
) 
g 
; 
(2) whichiscloselyrelatedtotheKendall'staucoecient.Infact,thelatterisa normalizationof(2)totheinterval[ 
 
1 
; 
1]thatcanbeinterpretedasacorrelation measure(itassumesthevalue1if 
 
= 
 
andthevalue 
 
1if 
 
isthereversalof 
 
).Kendall'stauisanatural,intuitive,andeasilyinterpretablemeasure[5].We shallfocuson(2)throughoutthepaper,eventhoughotherdistancemeasures couldofcoursebeused.Adesirablepropertyofanydistance 
D 
( 
¡ 
)isitsinvariance towardarenumberingoftheelements(renamingoflabels).Thispropertyis equivalenttothe 
rightinvariance 
of 
D 
( 
¡ 
),namely 
D 
( 
; 
)= 
D 
( 
; 
)forall 
;; 
P 
 
,where 
 
= 
 
 
 
denotesthepermutation 
i 
U3 
 
( 
 
( 
i 
)).Thedistance (2)isright-invariant,andsoaremostothercommonlyusedmetricson 
 
. 
3TheMallowsModel 
Sofar,wedidnotmakeanyassumptionsabouttheprobabilitymeasure(1) despiteitsexistence.Tobecomemoreconcrete,weresorttoadistance-based 
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