Learning to rank using evolutionary computation: immune programming or genetic programming?

Shuaiqiang Wang, Jun Ma, Jiming Liu

Abstract: Nowadays ranking function discovery approaches using Evolutionary Computation (EC), especially Genetic Programming (GP), have become an important branch in the Learning to Rank for Information Retrieval (LR4IR) field. Inspired by the GP based learning to rank approaches, we provide a series of generalized definitions and a common framework for the application of EC in learning to rank research. Besides, according to the introduced framework, we propose RankIP, a ranking function discovery approach using Immune Programming (IP). Experimental results demonstrate that RankIP evidently outperforms the baselines. In addition, we study the differences between IP and GP in theory and experiments. Results show that IP is more suitable for LR4IR due to its high diversity.