# Disambiguated Attention Embedding for Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.16912 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16912/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 May 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [SGDR: Stochastic Gradient Descent with Warm Restarts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03983/) (2016)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [MixMatch: A Holistic Approach to Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02249/) (2019)
- [Attention-based Deep Multiple Instance Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04712/) (2018)
- [Co-teaching: Robust Training of Deep Neural Networks with Extremely Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06872/) (2018)
- [Data Efficient and Weakly Supervised Computational Pathology on Whole Slide Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09666/) (2020)
- [TransMIL: Transformer based Correlated Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00908/) (2021)
- [Dual-stream Multiple Instance Learning Network for Whole Slide Image Classification with Self-supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08939/) (2020)
- [DTFD-MIL: Double-Tier Feature Distillation Multiple Instance Learning for Histopathology Whole Slide Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12081/) (2022)
- [Attention Mechanisms in Computer Vision: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.07624/) (2021)
- [Multiple Instance Learning: A Survey of Problem Characteristics and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.03365/) (2016)
- [Revisiting Multiple Instance Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02501/) (2016)
- [Exact Gaussian Processes on a Million Data Points](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08114/) (2019)
- [Progressive Identification of True Labels for Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08053/) (2020)
- [Provably Consistent Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08929/) (2020)
- [Learning from Complementary Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07541/) (2017)
- [Leveraged Weighted Loss for Partial Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05731/) (2021)
- [Additive MIL: Intrinsically Interpretable Multiple Instance Learning for Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.01794/) (2022)
- [Instance-Dependent Partial Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.12911/) (2021)
- [SoLar: Sinkhorn Label Refinery for Imbalanced Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10365/) (2022)
- [GM-PLL: Graph Matching based Partial Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.03073/) (2019)
- [A Regularization Approach for Instance-Based Superset Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02832/) (2019)
- [Multi-Instance Causal Representation Learning for Instance Label Prediction and Out-of-Distribution Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.12570/) (2022)
- [Learning from Ambiguous Labels for Lung Nodule Malignancy Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11436/) (2021)
- [Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning: Towards Exploiting Dual Inexact Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08997/) (2022)
- [Pedestrian Attribute Recognition in Video Surveillance Scenarios Based on View-attribute Attention Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06485/) (2021)
- [Non-I.I.D. Multi-Instance Learning for Predicting Instance and Bag Labels using Variational Auto-Encoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01276/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Realistic Evaluation of Deep Partial-Label Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10184/) (2025)
- [ASMIL: Attention-Stabilized Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06658/) (2026)
- [Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning with Margin Adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12597/) (2025)
- [Exploiting Conjugate Label Information for Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14369/) (2024)
- [Tuning the Right Foundation Models is What you Need for Partial Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05027/) (2025)
- [Unleashing the Power of Vision-Language Models for Long-Tailed Multi-Label Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20641/) (2025)
- [Calibratable Disambiguation Loss for Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17788/) (2025)
- [Neuro-symbolic Weak Supervision: Theory and Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18509/) (2025)
- [Recent advances in weakly supervised learning: New supervision paradigms, assumption relaxations, and practical solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.06896/) (2026)
- [Joint Class-Time Learning for Video Classification with Multi-Instance Partial-Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.06234/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In many real-world tasks, the concerned objects can be represented as a multi-instance bag associated with a candidate label set, which consists of one ground-truth label and several false positive labels. Multi-instance partial-label learning (MIPL) is a learning paradigm to deal with such tasks and has achieved favorable performances. Existing MIPL approach follows the instance-space paradigm by assigning augmented candidate label sets of bags to each instance and aggregating bag-level labels from instance-level labels. However, this scheme may be suboptimal as global bag-level information is ignored and the predicted labels of bags are sensitive to predictions of negative instances. In this paper, we study an alternative scheme where a multi-instance bag is embedded into a single vector representation. Accordingly, an intuitive algorithm named DEMIPL, i.e., Disambiguated attention Embedding for Multi-Instance Partial-Label learning, is proposed. DEMIPL employs a disambiguation attention mechanism to aggregate a multi-instance bag into a single vector representation, followed by a momentum-based disambiguation strategy to identify the ground-truth label from the candidate label set. Furthermore, we introduce a real-world MIPL dataset for colorectal cancer classification. Experimental results on benchmark and real-world datasets validate the superiority of DEMIPL against the compared MIPL and partial-label learning approaches.