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Main Authors: Wang, Yunli, Zhang, Zhen, Wang, Zhiqiang, Yang, Zixuan, Li, Yu, Yang, Jian, Wen, Shiyang, Jiang, Peng, Gai, Kun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.09492
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author Wang, Yunli
Zhang, Zhen
Wang, Zhiqiang
Yang, Zixuan
Li, Yu
Yang, Jian
Wen, Shiyang
Jiang, Peng
Gai, Kun
author_facet Wang, Yunli
Zhang, Zhen
Wang, Zhiqiang
Yang, Zixuan
Li, Yu
Yang, Jian
Wen, Shiyang
Jiang, Peng
Gai, Kun
contents Cascade Ranking is a prevalent architecture in large-scale top-k selection systems like recommendation and advertising platforms. Traditional training methods focus on single-stage optimization, neglecting interactions between stages. Recent advances have introduced interaction-aware training paradigms, but still struggle to 1) align training objectives with the goal of the entire cascade ranking (i.e., end-to-end recall of ground-truth items) and 2) learn effective collaboration patterns for different stages. To address these challenges, we propose LCRON, which introduces a novel surrogate loss function derived from the lower bound probability that ground truth items are selected by cascade ranking, ensuring alignment with the overall objective of the system. According to the properties of the derived bound, we further design an auxiliary loss for each stage to drive the reduction of this bound, leading to a more robust and effective top-k selection. LCRON enables end-to-end training of the entire cascade ranking system as a unified network. Experimental results demonstrate that LCRON achieves significant improvement over existing methods on public benchmarks and industrial applications, addressing key limitations in cascade ranking training and significantly enhancing system performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_09492
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning Cascade Ranking as One Network
Wang, Yunli
Zhang, Zhen
Wang, Zhiqiang
Yang, Zixuan
Li, Yu
Yang, Jian
Wen, Shiyang
Jiang, Peng
Gai, Kun
Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
Cascade Ranking is a prevalent architecture in large-scale top-k selection systems like recommendation and advertising platforms. Traditional training methods focus on single-stage optimization, neglecting interactions between stages. Recent advances have introduced interaction-aware training paradigms, but still struggle to 1) align training objectives with the goal of the entire cascade ranking (i.e., end-to-end recall of ground-truth items) and 2) learn effective collaboration patterns for different stages. To address these challenges, we propose LCRON, which introduces a novel surrogate loss function derived from the lower bound probability that ground truth items are selected by cascade ranking, ensuring alignment with the overall objective of the system. According to the properties of the derived bound, we further design an auxiliary loss for each stage to drive the reduction of this bound, leading to a more robust and effective top-k selection. LCRON enables end-to-end training of the entire cascade ranking system as a unified network. Experimental results demonstrate that LCRON achieves significant improvement over existing methods on public benchmarks and industrial applications, addressing key limitations in cascade ranking training and significantly enhancing system performance.
title Learning Cascade Ranking as One Network
topic Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.09492