data selection method
Graph Data Selection for Domain Adaptation: AModel-Free Approach
Graph domain adaptation (GDA) is a fundamental task in graph machine learning, with techniques like shift-robust graph neural networks (GNNs) and specialized training procedures to tackle the distribution shift problem. Although these modelcentric approaches show promising results, they often struggle with severe shifts and constrained computational resources. To address these challenges, we propose a novel model-free framework, GRADATE (GRAph DATa sElector), that selects the best training data from the source domain for the classification task on the target domain. GRADATE picks training samples without relying on any GNN model's predictions or training recipes, leveraging optimal transport theory to capture and adapt to distribution changes. GRADATE is data-efficient, scalable and meanwhile complements existing model-centric GDA approaches. Through comprehensive empirical studies on several real-world graph-level datasets and multiple covariate shift types, we demonstrate that GRADATE outperforms existing selection methods and enhances off-the-shelf GDA methods with much fewer training data.
Computational Budget Should Be Considered in Data Selection
Wan, Weilin, Zhang, Weizhong, Jin, Cheng
Data selection improves computational efficiency by choosing informative subsets of training samples. However, existing methods ignore the compute budget, treating data selection and importance evaluation independently of compute budget constraints. Yet empirical studies show no algorithm can consistently outperform others (or even random selection) across varying budgets. We therefore argue that compute budget must be integral to data-selection strategies, since different budgets impose distinct requirements on data quantity, quality, and distribution for effective training. To this end, we propose a novel Computational budget-Aware Data Selection (CADS) method and naturally formulate it into a bilevel optimization framework, where the inner loop trains the model within the constraints of the computational budget on some selected subset of training data, while the outer loop optimizes data selection based on model evaluation. Our technical contributions lie in addressing two main challenges in solving this bilevel optimization problem: the expensive Hessian matrix estimation for outer-loop gradients and the computational burden of achieving inner-loop optimality during iterations. To solve the first issue, we propose a probabilistic reparameterization strategy and compute the gradient using a Hessian-free policy gradient estimator. To address the second challenge, we transform the inner optimization problem into a penalty term in the outer objective, further discovering that we only need to estimate the minimum of a one-dimensional loss to calculate the gradient, significantly improving efficiency. Extensive experiments show that our method achieves performance gains of up to 14.42% over baselines in vision and language benchmarks.
Graph Data Selection for Domain Adaptation: A Model-Free Approach
Li, Ting-Wei, Qiu, Ruizhong, Tong, Hanghang
Graph domain adaptation (GDA) is a fundamental task in graph machine learning, with techniques like shift-robust graph neural networks (GNNs) and specialized training procedures to tackle the distribution shift problem. Although these model-centric approaches show promising results, they often struggle with severe shifts and constrained computational resources. To address these challenges, we propose a novel model-free framework, GRADATE (GRAph DATa sElector), that selects the best training data from the source domain for the classification task on the target domain. GRADATE picks training samples without relying on any GNN model's predictions or training recipes, leveraging optimal transport theory to capture and adapt to distribution changes. GRADATE is data-efficient, scalable and meanwhile complements existing model-centric GDA approaches. Through comprehensive empirical studies on several real-world graph-level datasets and multiple covariate shift types, we demonstrate that GRADATE outperforms existing selection methods and enhances off-the-shelf GDA methods with much fewer training data.
Meta-rater: A Multi-dimensional Data Selection Method for Pre-training Language Models
Zhuang, Xinlin, Peng, Jiahui, Ma, Ren, Wang, Yinfan, Bai, Tianyi, Wei, Xingjian, Qiu, Jiantao, Zhang, Chi, Qian, Ying, He, Conghui
The composition of pre-training datasets for large language models (LLMs) remains largely undisclosed, hindering transparency and efforts to optimize data quality, a critical driver of model performance. Current data selection methods, such as natural language quality assessments, diversity-based filters, and classifier-based approaches, are limited by single-dimensional evaluation or redundancy-focused strategies. To address these gaps, we propose four dimensions to evaluate data quality: professionalism, readability, reasoning, and cleanliness. We further introduce Meta-rater,a multi-dimensional data selection method that integrates these dimensions with existing quality metrics through learned optimal weightings. Meta-rater employs proxy models to train a regression model that predicts validation loss, enabling the identification of optimal combinations of quality scores. Experiments demonstrate that Meta-rater doubles convergence speed for 1.3B parameter models and improves downstream task performance by 3.23, with advantages that scale to models as large as 7.2B parameters. Our work establishes that holistic, multi-dimensional quality integration significantly outperforms conventional single-dimension approaches, offering a scalable paradigm for enhancing pre-training efficiency and model capability. To advance future research, we release scripts, data, and models at https://github.com/opendatalab/Meta-rater.
Difficulty-Based Preference Data Selection by DPO Implicit Reward Gap
Qi, Xuan, Xu, Rongwu, Jin, Zhijing
Aligning large language models (LLMs) with human preferences is a critical challenge in AI research. While methods like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) are widely used, they often rely on large, costly preference datasets. The current work lacks methods for high-quality data selection specifically for preference data. In this work, we introduce a novel difficulty-based data selection strategy for preference datasets, grounded in the DPO implicit reward mechanism. By selecting preference data examples with smaller DPO implicit reward gaps, which are indicative of more challenging cases, we improve data efficiency and model alignment. Our approach consistently outperforms five strong baselines across multiple datasets and alignment tasks, achieving superior performance with only 10\% of the original data. This principled, efficient selection method offers a promising solution for scaling LLM alignment with limited resources.
LLM Data Selection and Utilization via Dynamic Bi-level Optimization
Yu, Yang, Han, Kai, Zhou, Hang, Tang, Yehui, Huang, Kaiqi, Wang, Yunhe, Tao, Dacheng
While large-scale training data is fundamental for developing capable large language models (LLMs), strategically selecting high-quality data has emerged as a critical approach to enhance training efficiency and reduce computational costs. Current data selection methodologies predominantly rely on static, training-agnostic criteria, failing to account for the dynamic model training and data interactions. In this paper, we propose a new Data Weighting Model (DWM) to adjust the weight of selected data within each batch to achieve a dynamic data utilization during LLM training. Specially, to better capture the dynamic data preference of the trained model, a bi-level optimization framework is implemented to update the weighting model. Our experiments demonstrate that DWM enhances the performance of models trained with randomly-selected data, and the learned weighting model can be transferred to enhance other data selection methods and models of different sizes. Moreover, we further analyze how a model's data preferences evolve throughout training, providing new insights into the data preference of the model during training.