TensorRec

A TensorFlow recommendation algorithm and framework in Python.

What is TensorRec?

TensorRec is a Python recommendation system that allows you to quickly develop recommendation algorithms and customize them using TensorFlow.

TensorRec lets you to customize your recommendation system's embedding functions and loss functions while TensorRec handles the data manipulation, scoring, and ranking to generate recommendations.

A TensorRec system consumes three pieces of data: user_features, item_features, and interactions. It uses this data to learn to make and rank recommendations.

For more information, and for an outline of this project, please read this blog post.

Quick Start

TensorRec can be installed via pip: pip install tensorrec

TODO

Immediate plans for development of TensorRec include:

1. Documentation of TensorRec class and methods
2. Implementation of WARP loss, or an alternate pairwise loss solution
3. Implementation of more evaluation methods (AUC, F score, etc)
4. Integration of publicly available data sets (MovieLens, etc)

Example: Input data

The following examples show what user/item features and interactions would look like in a TensorRec system meant to recommend business consulting projects (items) to consultants (users).

The data is represented in matrices. TensorRec can consume these matrices as any scipy.sparse matrix.

User features:

Item features:

Interactions:

Images from Medium

Example: Basic usage

import numpy as np
import tensorrec

# Build the model with default parameters
model = tensorrec.TensorRec()

# Generate some dummy data
interactions, user_features, item_features = tensorrec.util.generate_dummy_data(num_users=100,
																				num_items=150,
																				interaction_density=.05)

# Fit the model for 5 epochs
model.fit(interactions, user_features, item_features, epochs=5, verbose=True)

# Predict scores for all users and all items
predictions = model.predict(user_features=user_features,
							item_features=item_features)

# Calculate and print the recall at 10
r_at_k = tensorrec.eval.recall_at_k(model, interactions,
									k=10,
									user_features=user_features,
									item_features=item_features)
print(np.mean(r_at_k))

Example: Defining custom representation function

import tensorflow as tf
import tensorrec

# Define a custom representation function graph
def tanh_representation_graph(tf_features, n_components, n_features, node_name_ending):
	"""
	This representation function embeds the user/item features by passing them through a single tanh layer.
	:param tf_features: tf.SparseTensor
	The user/item features as a SparseTensor of dimensions [n_users/items, n_features]
	:param n_components: int
	The dimensionality of the resulting representation.
	:param n_features: int
	The number of features in tf_features
	:param node_name_ending: String
	Either 'user' or 'item'
	:return:
	A tuple of (tf.Tensor, list) where the first value is the resulting representation in n_components
	dimensions and the second value is a list containing all tf.Variables which should be subject to
	regularization.
	"""
	tf_tanh_weights = tf.Variable(tf.random_normal([n_features, n_components],
												   stddev=.5),
								  name='tanh_weights_%s' % node_name_ending)

	tf_repr = tf.nn.tanh(tf.sparse_tensor_dense_matmul(tf_features, tf_tanh_weights))

	# Return repr layer and variables
	return tf_repr, [tf_tanh_weights]

# Build a model with the custom representation function
model = tensorrec.TensorRec(user_repr_graph=tanh_representation_graph,
							item_repr_graph=tanh_representation_graph)

Example: Defining custom loss function

import tensorflow as tf
import tensorrec

# Define a custom loss function graph
def simple_error_graph(tf_prediction_serial, tf_interactions_serial, **kwargs):
	"""
	This loss function returns the absolute simple error between the predictions and the interactions.
	:param tf_prediction_serial: tf.Tensor
	The recommendation scores as a Tensor of shape [n_samples, 1]
	:param tf_interactions_serial: tf.Tensor
	The sample interactions corresponding to tf_prediction as a Tensor of shape [n_samples, 1]
	:param kwargs:
	Other TensorFlow nodes (not yet implemented)
	:return:
	A tf.Tensor containing the learning loss.
	"""
	return tf.reduce_mean(tf.abs(tf_interactions_serial - tf_prediction_serial))

# Build a model with the custom loss function
model = tensorrec.TensorRec(loss_graph=simple_error_graph)