# Unifying Multi-Domain Multi-Task Learning: Tensor and Neural Network Perspectives

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.09345 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.09345/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Nov 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Rethinking Hard-Parameter Sharing in Multi-Domain Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.11359/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multi-domain learning aims to benefit from simultaneously learning across several different but related domains. In this chapter, we propose a single framework that unifies multi-domain learning (MDL) and the related but better studied area of multi-task learning (MTL). By exploiting the concept of a semantic descriptor we show how our framework encompasses various classic and recent MDL/MTL algorithms as special cases with different semantic descriptor encodings. As a second contribution, we present a higher order generalisation of this framework, capable of simultaneous multi-task-multi-domain learning. This generalisation has two mathematically equivalent views in multi-linear algebra and gated neural networks respectively. Moreover, by exploiting the semantic descriptor, it provides neural networks the capability of zero-shot learning (ZSL), where a classifier is generated for an unseen class without any training data; as well as zero-shot domain adaptation (ZSDA), where a model is generated for an unseen domain without any training data. In practice, this framework provides a powerful yet easy to implement method that can be flexibly applied to MTL, MDL, ZSL and ZSDA.