Structured Output Regularization: a framework for few-shot transfer learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ewen, Nicolas, Diaz-Rodriguez, Jairo, Ramsay, Kelly
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ewen, Nicolas
Diaz-Rodriguez, Jairo
Ramsay, Kelly
author_facet Ewen, Nicolas
Diaz-Rodriguez, Jairo
Ramsay, Kelly
contents Traditional transfer learning typically reuses large pre-trained networks by freezing some of their weights and adding task-specific layers. While this approach is computationally efficient, it limits the model's ability to adapt to domain-specific features and can still lead to overfitting with very limited data. To address these limitations, we propose Structured Output Regularization (SOR), a simple yet effective framework that freezes the internal network structures (e.g., convolutional filters) while using a combination of group lasso and $L_1$ penalties. This framework tailors the model to specific data with minimal additional parameters and is easily applicable to various network components, such as convolutional filters or various blocks in neural networks enabling broad applicability for transfer learning tasks. We evaluate SOR on three few shot medical imaging classification tasks and we achieve competitive results using DenseNet121, and EfficientNetB4 bases compared to established benchmarks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08728
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Structured Output Regularization: a framework for few-shot transfer learning
Ewen, Nicolas
Diaz-Rodriguez, Jairo
Ramsay, Kelly
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Traditional transfer learning typically reuses large pre-trained networks by freezing some of their weights and adding task-specific layers. While this approach is computationally efficient, it limits the model's ability to adapt to domain-specific features and can still lead to overfitting with very limited data. To address these limitations, we propose Structured Output Regularization (SOR), a simple yet effective framework that freezes the internal network structures (e.g., convolutional filters) while using a combination of group lasso and $L_1$ penalties. This framework tailors the model to specific data with minimal additional parameters and is easily applicable to various network components, such as convolutional filters or various blocks in neural networks enabling broad applicability for transfer learning tasks. We evaluate SOR on three few shot medical imaging classification tasks and we achieve competitive results using DenseNet121, and EfficientNetB4 bases compared to established benchmarks.
title Structured Output Regularization: a framework for few-shot transfer learning
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08728