arXiv Computation and Language

TRIO: Task Refinement with Individual Optimization for Retrieval-Augmented Generation

The paper introduces TRIO, a retrieval‑augmented generation framework that uses three agents—query extension, judge, and answer—to iteratively refine queries and improve retrieval and answer quality. It aligns each agent’s objective with rewards derived from answer quality, employs unanimity voting to label expanded queries, and applies dynamic matching‑based rewards with curriculum learning for the answer agent. Experiments on multiple benchmarks show TRIO outperforms state‑of‑the‑art methods.

arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

Retrieval from Within: An Intrinsic Capability of Attention-Based Models

The paper introduces INTRA, an attention-based encoder-decoder framework that retrieves directly from its own internal representations instead of using an external retriever. By having decoder attention query pre-encoded evidence chunks, INTRA unifies retrieval and generation, eliminating the typical mismatch seen in retrieval-augmented generation pipelines. Experiments on question-answering benchmarks show that INTRA outperforms strong engineered retrieval pipelines in both evidence recall and overall answer quality.

By Elad Hoffer, Yochai Blau, Edan Kinderman, Ron Banner, Daniel Soudry, Boris Ginsburg
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 29

Parameters vs. Context: TRACE Fine-Tuning for Robust Retrieval-Augmented Generation

The paper introduces TRACE, a fine‑tuning framework for Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) that addresses conflicts between retrieved knowledge and a model’s internal knowledge. TRACE uses multi‑agent debate traces to identify correct and incorrect candidates and answer‑shift patterns, providing fine‑grained supervision for reliable knowledge‑source selection. It also incorporates an answer‑completeness regularization mechanism to prevent empty, overly short, or prematurely terminated responses, thereby improving robustness against misleading retrieved content and enhancing answer quality.

By Zhengchen Huang, Yundong Sun, Minrui Song, Shuanglong Yao, Ye Liu, Ji Chen, Xing Wang
arXiv AI
5d ago

Heterogeneous Co-Evolution Learning for Tool-Efficient Search Agents with Zero Labels

The paper introduces ZEST-Search, a zero-label framework that trains search agents by co-evolving task generation and solver learning. It constructs validated search tasks online from unlabeled questions, using a heterogeneous proposer to adapt task difficulty to the solver’s evolving capabilities. The approach rewards the proposer for intermediate difficulty and the solver for tool-aware performance, leading to improved search efficiency and accuracy across multiple question‑answering benchmarks.

By Qin-Wen Luo, Sheng Ren, Xiang Chen, Rui Liu, Jun Fang, Naiqiang Tan, Jun Wang, Hua Chai, Sheng-Jun Huang
arXiv AI
Sep 17

One Size Does Not Fit All! Dynamic Retriever and Generator Selection for RAG

The paper introduces DRAG, a query‑adaptive framework that jointly selects retriever and generator configurations for Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. Two variants are presented: DRAG_QPP, a training‑free routing method using Query Performance Prediction and perplexity signals, and DRAG_SFT, a supervised approach that fine‑tunes an LLM to predict configurations. Experiments on three LLM families and four QA benchmarks show that DRAG_QPP matches strong static baselines while cutting inference latency, and DRAG_SFT consistently outperforms both static and training‑free adaptive baselines, demonstrating a better effectiveness‑efficiency trade‑off.

By Neeraj Anand, Payel Santra, Partha Basuchowdhuri, Debasis Ganguly, Sumit Bhatia
arXiv AI
Oct 16

Self-improving data synthesis enables scalable adaptation of embedding models

The paper introduces SYNTRA, a self‑improving framework that transforms a small set of retrieval examples into reusable synthesis instructions for generating training data. By inferring implicit information needs and relevance criteria from an unlabelled corpus and refining instructions through feedback, SYNTRA produces effective training data across 24 datasets and 15 domains, improving retrieval performance even for strong embedding models. Experiments show that SYNTRA’s self‑improvement yields better results than human calibration on four tasks and scales effectively, with continued gains on MS MARCO across a 32‑fold range of synthetic data sizes.

By Zucan Lyu, Rui Tang, Jianlyu Chen, Peisheng Jin, Defu Lian