English

Robust Generalization with Adaptive Optimal Transport Priors for Decision-Focused Learning

Machine Learning 2026-02-17 v2 Machine Learning Applications

Abstract

Few-shot learning requires models to generalize under limited supervision while remaining robust to distribution shifts. Existing Sinkhorn Distributionally Robust Optimization (DRO) methods provide theoretical guarantees but rely on a fixed reference distribution, which limits their adaptability. We propose a Prototype-Guided Distributionally Robust Optimization (PG-DRO) framework that learns class-adaptive priors from abundant base data via hierarchical optimal transport and embeds them into the Sinkhorn DRO formulation. This design enables few-shot information to be organically integrated into producing class-specific robust decisions that are both theoretically grounded and efficient, and further aligns the uncertainty set with transferable structural knowledge. Experiments show that PG-DRO achieves stronger robust generalization in few-shot scenarios, outperforming both standard learners and DRO baselines.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.01427,
  title  = {Robust Generalization with Adaptive Optimal Transport Priors for Decision-Focused Learning},
  author = {Haixiang Sun and Andrew L. Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.01427},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:30:32.974Z