# Target-Guided Selective Reweighting for Physics-Informed Neural Network Inverse Problems: A Transfer Learning Approach

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.05271 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05271/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Jul 2026.

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

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [What Uncertainties Do We Need in Bayesian Deep Learning for Computer Vision?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04977/) (2017)
- [MS-TCN: Multi-Stage Temporal Convolutional Network for Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.01945/) (2019)
- [Videos as Space-Time Region Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01810/) (2018)
- [Graph Convolutional Networks for Temporal Action Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.03252/) (2019)
- [Probabilistic Face Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09658/) (2019)
- [Word Representations via Gaussian Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6623/) (2014)
- [Unsupervised learning of action classes with continuous temporal embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04189/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Learning and Segmentation of Complex Activities from Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.09490/) (2018)
- [Temporally-Weighted Hierarchical Clustering for Unsupervised Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11264/) (2021)
- [Modeling Uncertainty with Hedged Instance Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00319/) (2018)
- [Unsupervised Action Segmentation by Joint Representation Learning and Online Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13353/) (2021)
- [View-Invariant Probabilistic Embedding for Human Pose](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01001/) (2019)
- [Joint Visual-Temporal Embedding for Unsupervised Learning of Actions in Untrimmed Sequences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.11122/) (2020)
- [Energy-Based Sliced Wasserstein Distance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13586/) (2023)
- [Temporally Consistent Unbalanced Optimal Transport for Unsupervised Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01518/) (2024)
- [Action Shuffle Alternating Learning for Unsupervised Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02116/) (2021)
- [Unsupervised Discriminative Embedding for Sub-Action Learning in Complex Activities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00067/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Vector Quantization for Unsupervised Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17640/) (2024)
- [Timestamp-Supervised Action Segmentation with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.15031/) (2022)
- [Permutation-Aware Action Segmentation via Unsupervised Frame-to-Segment Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19478/) (2023)
- [Unbalanced Optimal Transport: A Unified Framework for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02402/) (2023)
- [Learning of Global Objective for Network Flow in Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16210/) (2022)
- [Joint Self-Supervised Video Alignment and Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16832/) (2025)
- [Gated Temporal Diffusion for Stochastic Long-Term Dense Anticipation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11954/) (2024)
- [CLOT: Closed Loop Optimal Transport for Unsupervised Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.03539/) (2025)

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

- [Beyond Field Accuracy: Two-Axis Diagnosis of Inverse-PINN Parameter Error](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.15373/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) often face ill-posed optimization, competing losses, and parameter compensation in partial differential equation (PDE) inverse problems. Transfer learning can reuse source-task representations, but direct fine-tuning may induce negative transfer when source and target physics differ, leading to low field error but inaccurate parameter recovery. To address this issue, we propose Target-Guided Selective Reweighting PINN (TGSR-PINN), a target-evidence-driven representation correction method for PINN inverse transfer learning. TGSR-PINN transfers source network weights and biases but initializes target physical parameters independently. After target short adaptation, it scores neurons using first-order Taylor sensitivity and pre-activation variance on fixed batches. These scores are converted into continuous weak-adaptation signals using a Gaussian mixture model with rank fallback. TGSR-PINN then applies bounded selective soft decay to the corresponding input weight rows and biases without pruning or resetting them. Experiments on a zero-source high-P'eclet inflow-outflow problem with nonzero Dirichlet data and an outflow boundary layer, Allen-Cahn to Burgers cross-PDE transfer, and 5%-noise reaction-diffusion inverse problems show that TGSR-PINN improves parameter recovery while maintaining low field error. Ablation studies indicate that neuron target scoring, weak-adaptation estimation, layer protection, and selective soft decay jointly contribute to the observed benefits.
