Domain Transfer Structured Output Learning

In this paper, we propose the problem of domain transfer structured output learning and the first solution to solve it. The problem is defined on two different data domains sharing the same input and output spaces, named as source domain and target domain. The outputs are structured, and for the data samples of the source domain, the corresponding outputs are available, while for most data samples of the target domain, the corresponding outputs are missing. The input distributions of the two domains are significantly different. The problem is to learn a predictor for the target domain to predict the structured outputs from the input. Due to the limited number of outputs available for the samples form the target domain, it is difficult to directly learn the predictor from the target domain, thus it is necessary to use the output information available in source domain. We propose to learn the target domain predictor by adapting a auxiliary predictor trained by using source domain data to the target domain. The adaptation is implemented by adding a delta function on the basis of the auxiliary predictor. An algorithm is developed to learn the parameter of the delta function to minimize loss functions associated with the predicted outputs against the true outputs of the data samples with available outputs of the target domain.