# VCC-INFUSE: Towards Accurate and Efficient Selection of Unlabeled Examples in Semi-supervised Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11947 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11947/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [On Calibration of Modern Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.04599/) (2017)
- [Dropout as a Bayesian Approximation: Representing Model Uncertainty in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02142/) (2015)
- [FixMatch: Simplifying Semi-Supervised Learning with Consistency and Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07685/) (2020)
- [Understanding Black-box Predictions via Influence Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04730/) (2017)
- [MixMatch: A Holistic Approach to Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02249/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Data Augmentation for Consistency Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12848/) (2019)
- [Temporal Ensembling for Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02242/) (2016)
- [Virtual Adversarial Training: A Regularization Method for Supervised and Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03976/) (2017)
- [FlexMatch: Boosting Semi-Supervised Learning with Curriculum Pseudo Labeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08263/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning on a Data Diet: Finding Important Examples Early in Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.07075/) (2021)
- [Measuring Calibration in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01685/) (2019)
- [Meta Pseudo Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10580/) (2020)
- [GRAD-MATCH: Gradient Matching based Data Subset Selection for Efficient Deep Model Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00123/) (2021)
- [Mix-n-Match: Ensemble and Compositional Methods for Uncertainty Calibration in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.07329/) (2020)
- [CoMatch: Semi-supervised Learning with Contrastive Graph Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11183/) (2020)
- [Dash: Semi-Supervised Learning with Dynamic Thresholding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00650/) (2021)
- [SoftMatch: Addressing the Quantity-Quality Trade-off in Semi-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10921/) (2023)
- [SimMatch: Semi-supervised Learning with Similarity Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06915/) (2022)
- [Distribution Aligning Refinery of Pseudo-label for Imbalanced Semi-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08844/) (2020)
- [Debiased Learning from Naturally Imbalanced Pseudo-Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01490/) (2022)
- [RETRIEVE: Coreset Selection for Efficient and Robust Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07760/) (2021)
- [Scalable Gradient-Based Tuning of Continuous Regularization Hyperparameters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.06727/) (2015)
- [ABC: Auxiliary Balanced Classifier for Class-imbalanced Semi-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.10368/) (2021)
- [DASO: Distribution-Aware Semantics-Oriented Pseudo-label for Imbalanced Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05682/) (2021)
- [BaCon: Boosting Imbalanced Semi-supervised Learning via Balanced Feature-Level Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12986/) (2024)
- [Semi-supervised learning objectives as log-likelihoods in a generative model of data curation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.05913/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Despite the progress of Semi-supervised Learning (SSL), existing methods fail to utilize unlabeled data effectively and efficiently. Many pseudo-label-based methods select unlabeled examples based on inaccurate confidence scores from the classifier. Most prior work also uses all available unlabeled data without pruning, making it difficult to handle large amounts of unlabeled data. To address these issues, we propose two methods: Variational Confidence Calibration (VCC) and Influence-Function-based Unlabeled Sample Elimination (INFUSE). VCC is an universal plugin for SSL confidence calibration, using a variational autoencoder to select more accurate pseudo labels based on three types of consistency scores. INFUSE is a data pruning method that constructs a core dataset of unlabeled examples under SSL. Our methods are effective in multiple datasets and settings, reducing classification errors rates and saving training time. Together, VCC-INFUSE reduces the error rate of FlexMatch on the CIFAR-100 dataset by 1.08% while saving nearly half of the training time.