Collaborative Filtering Through Weighted Similarities of User and Item Embeddings

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Main Authors: Pires, Pedro R., Sereicikas, Rafael T., Azevedo, Gregorio F., Almeida, Tiago A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Pires, Pedro R.
Sereicikas, Rafael T.
Azevedo, Gregorio F.
Almeida, Tiago A.
author_facet Pires, Pedro R.
Sereicikas, Rafael T.
Azevedo, Gregorio F.
Almeida, Tiago A.
contents In recent years, neural networks and other complex models have dominated recommender systems, often setting new benchmarks for state-of-the-art performance. Yet, despite these advancements, award-winning research has demonstrated that traditional matrix factorization methods can remain competitive, offering simplicity and reduced computational overhead. Hybrid models, which combine matrix factorization with newer techniques, are increasingly employed to harness the strengths of multiple approaches. This paper proposes a novel ensemble method that unifies user-item and item-item recommendations through a weighted similarity framework to deliver top-N recommendations. Our approach is distinctive in its use of shared user and item embeddings for both recommendation strategies, simplifying the architecture and enhancing computational efficiency. Extensive experiments across multiple datasets show that our method achieves competitive performance and is robust in varying scenarios that favor either user-item or item-item recommendations. Additionally, by eliminating the need for embedding-specific fine-tuning, our model allows for the seamless reuse of hyperparameters from the base algorithm without sacrificing performance. This results in a method that is both efficient and easy to implement. Our open-source implementation is available at https://github.com/UFSCar-LaSID/weighted-sims-recommender.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_15573
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Collaborative Filtering Through Weighted Similarities of User and Item Embeddings
Pires, Pedro R.
Sereicikas, Rafael T.
Azevedo, Gregorio F.
Almeida, Tiago A.
Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
In recent years, neural networks and other complex models have dominated recommender systems, often setting new benchmarks for state-of-the-art performance. Yet, despite these advancements, award-winning research has demonstrated that traditional matrix factorization methods can remain competitive, offering simplicity and reduced computational overhead. Hybrid models, which combine matrix factorization with newer techniques, are increasingly employed to harness the strengths of multiple approaches. This paper proposes a novel ensemble method that unifies user-item and item-item recommendations through a weighted similarity framework to deliver top-N recommendations. Our approach is distinctive in its use of shared user and item embeddings for both recommendation strategies, simplifying the architecture and enhancing computational efficiency. Extensive experiments across multiple datasets show that our method achieves competitive performance and is robust in varying scenarios that favor either user-item or item-item recommendations. Additionally, by eliminating the need for embedding-specific fine-tuning, our model allows for the seamless reuse of hyperparameters from the base algorithm without sacrificing performance. This results in a method that is both efficient and easy to implement. Our open-source implementation is available at https://github.com/UFSCar-LaSID/weighted-sims-recommender.
title Collaborative Filtering Through Weighted Similarities of User and Item Embeddings
topic Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15573