We introduce FlexTab, a flexible encoder-decoder architecture for in-context learning on tabular data that pairs a single, task-agnostic encoder with a suite of task-specific decoders. Unlike existing tabular in-context learners, which entangle feature representations with a specific prediction target, our design produces \textit{target-agnostic} row embeddings that can be leveraged across a wide range of downstream tasks within a table-native in-context learning setup.
arXiv:2606. 30336v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We introduce FlexTab, a flexible encoder-decoder architecture for in-context learning on tabular data that pairs a single, task-agnostic encoder with a suite of task-specific decoders.
The paper introduces TEmBed, a unified benchmark for evaluating tabular embeddings across four representation levels—cell, row, column, and table—using a diverse set of models. It demonstrates that the best model depends on the specific task and representation level, providing practical guidance for selecting embeddings in real-world applications. The study aims to facilitate the development of more general-purpose tabular representation models.
The paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) can leverage frozen relational‑transformer embeddings by injecting them as soft tokens. Using a learned MLP projection and LoRA adaptation, the authors fine‑tune Qwen3.5‑4B on chain‑of‑thought reasoning traces and group‑based reinforcement learning, then evaluate on ten binary classification tasks across six RelBench databases. The hybrid approach consistently underperforms the standalone relational transformer, showing sensitivity to serialization format, token budget, and RL stability, leading the authors to conclude that stronger alignment objectives and schema‑aware design are needed for reliable relational prediction.
arXiv:2602. 13697v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Relational databases (RDBs) contain vast amounts of heterogeneous tabular information that can be exploited for predictive modeling purposes.
arXiv:2609.36968v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Unsupervised tabular anomaly detection (TAD) aims to identify anomalous rows in tabular data using normal training samples. While conventional methods...
arXiv:2609.01292v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Relational Deep Learning (RDL) has become a powerful paradigm for learning from multi-tabular data. However, manually defining RDL prediction tasks i...
arXiv:2606. 03040v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Relational databases underpin modern enterprise, scientific, and healthcare systems, yet predictive machine learning on such data remains challenging due to their multi-table, heterogeneous, and temporal structure.
arXiv:2607. 05476v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Given a relational database (RDB) storing heterogeneous tabular information, how can we predict missing (or future) values in some target column of interest?
arXiv:2607. 24130v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Tabular data is the dominant structured-data modality, and learning table representations has become a core research direction.
RelICL: Training-free Relational Learning with Tabular Foundation Models proposes a new method for relational learning that addresses two key issues of deep feature synthesis—feature explosion and interaction blindness—by propagating and fusing information step by step through the schema graph using a tabular foundation model. The approach retains the benefits of DFS while improving scalability and performance. Experiments on RelBench tasks show that RelICL performs on par with the strongest DFS-based approach.
Tabular data is the dominant structured-data modality, and learning table representations has become a core research direction. Table-level embeddings in particular underpin a wide range of applications, including table retrieval, data lake discovery, and table classification.
arXiv:2607. 03659v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Relational databases (RDBs) are the primary data infrastructure in many enterprises, yet recent deep learning methods designed for RDBs have been evaluated under inconsistent experimental protocols, making fair comparison difficult.