Feasibility of Transfer Learning: A Mathematical Framework
Haoyang Cao Haotian Gu Xin Guo
Transfer learning is a popular paradigm for utilizing existing knowledge from
previous learning tasks to improve the performance of new ones. It has enjoyed
numerous empirical successes and inspired a growing number of theoretical
studies. This paper addresses the feasibility issue of transfer learning. It
begins by establishing the necessary mathematical concepts and constructing a
mathematical framework for transfer learning. It then identifies and formulates
the three-step transfer learning procedure as an optimization problem, allowing
for the resolution of the feasibility issue. Importantly, it demonstrates that
under certain technical conditions, such as appropriate choice of loss
functions and data sets, an optimal procedure for transfer learning exists.
This study of the feasibility issue brings additional insights into various
transfer learning problems. It sheds light on the impact of feature
augmentation on model performance, explores potential extensions of domain
adaptation, and examines the feasibility of efficient feature extractor
transfer in image classification.