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Main Authors: Ricci, Simone, Biondi, Niccolò, Pernici, Federico, Patras, Ioannis, Del Bimbo, Alberto
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16664
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author Ricci, Simone
Biondi, Niccolò
Pernici, Federico
Patras, Ioannis
Del Bimbo, Alberto
author_facet Ricci, Simone
Biondi, Niccolò
Pernici, Federico
Patras, Ioannis
Del Bimbo, Alberto
contents Retrieval systems rely on representations learned by increasingly powerful models. However, due to the high training cost and inconsistencies in learned representations, there is significant interest in facilitating communication between representations and ensuring compatibility across independently trained neural networks. In the literature, two primary approaches are commonly used to adapt different learned representations: affine transformations, which adapt well to specific distributions but can significantly alter the original representation, and orthogonal transformations, which preserve the original structure with strict geometric constraints but limit adaptability. A key challenge is adapting the latent spaces of updated models to align with those of previous models on downstream distributions while preserving the newly learned representation spaces. In this paper, we impose a relaxed orthogonality constraint, namely $λ$-Orthogonality regularization, while learning an affine transformation, to obtain distribution-specific adaptation while retaining the original learned representations. Extensive experiments across various architectures and datasets validate our approach, demonstrating that it preserves the model's zero-shot performance and ensures compatibility across model updates. Code available at: \href{https://github.com/miccunifi/lambda_orthogonality.git}{https://github.com/miccunifi/lambda\_orthogonality}.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_16664
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle $\boldsymbolλ$-Orthogonality Regularization for Compatible Representation Learning
Ricci, Simone
Biondi, Niccolò
Pernici, Federico
Patras, Ioannis
Del Bimbo, Alberto
Machine Learning
Retrieval systems rely on representations learned by increasingly powerful models. However, due to the high training cost and inconsistencies in learned representations, there is significant interest in facilitating communication between representations and ensuring compatibility across independently trained neural networks. In the literature, two primary approaches are commonly used to adapt different learned representations: affine transformations, which adapt well to specific distributions but can significantly alter the original representation, and orthogonal transformations, which preserve the original structure with strict geometric constraints but limit adaptability. A key challenge is adapting the latent spaces of updated models to align with those of previous models on downstream distributions while preserving the newly learned representation spaces. In this paper, we impose a relaxed orthogonality constraint, namely $λ$-Orthogonality regularization, while learning an affine transformation, to obtain distribution-specific adaptation while retaining the original learned representations. Extensive experiments across various architectures and datasets validate our approach, demonstrating that it preserves the model's zero-shot performance and ensures compatibility across model updates. Code available at: \href{https://github.com/miccunifi/lambda_orthogonality.git}{https://github.com/miccunifi/lambda\_orthogonality}.
title $\boldsymbolλ$-Orthogonality Regularization for Compatible Representation Learning
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16664