Yunfan Gao

Yunfan Gao, Tao Sheng, Youlin Xiang et al.

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated their significant potential to be applied for addressing various application tasks. However, traditional recommender systems continue to face great challenges such as poor interactivity and explainability, which actually also hinder their broad deployment in real-world systems. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a novel paradigm called Chat-Rec (ChatGPT Augmented Recommender System) that innovatively augments LLMs for building conversational recommender systems by converting user profiles and historical interactions into prompts. Chat-Rec is demonstrated to be effective in learning user preferences and establishing connections between users and products through in-context learning, which also makes the recommendation process more interactive and explainable. What's more, within the Chat-Rec framework, user's preferences can transfer to different products for cross-domain recommendations, and prompt-based injection of information into LLMs can also handle the cold-start scenarios with new items. In our experiments, Chat-Rec effectively improve the results of top-k recommendations and performs better in zero-shot rating prediction task. Chat-Rec offers a novel approach to improving recommender systems and presents new practical scenarios for the implementation of AIGC (AI generated content) in recommender system studies.

Yunfan Gao, Yun Xiong, Meng Wang et al.

Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG) has markedly enhanced the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in tackling knowledge-intensive tasks. The increasing demands of application scenarios have driven the evolution of RAG, leading to the integration of advanced retrievers, LLMs and other complementary technologies, which in turn has amplified the intricacy of RAG systems. However, the rapid advancements are outpacing the foundational RAG paradigm, with many methods struggling to be unified under the process of "retrieve-then-generate". In this context, this paper examines the limitations of the existing RAG paradigm and introduces the modular RAG framework. By decomposing complex RAG systems into independent modules and specialized operators, it facilitates a highly reconfigurable framework. Modular RAG transcends the traditional linear architecture, embracing a more advanced design that integrates routing, scheduling, and fusion mechanisms. Drawing on extensive research, this paper further identifies prevalent RAG patterns-linear, conditional, branching, and looping-and offers a comprehensive analysis of their respective implementation nuances. Modular RAG presents innovative opportunities for the conceptualization and deployment of RAG systems. Finally, the paper explores the potential emergence of new operators and paradigms, establishing a solid theoretical foundation and a practical roadmap for the continued evolution and practical deployment of RAG technologies.

Yunfan Gao, Yun Xiong, Xinyu Gao et al.

Large Language Models (LLMs) showcase impressive capabilities but encounter challenges like hallucination, outdated knowledge, and non-transparent, untraceable reasoning processes. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has emerged as a promising solution by incorporating knowledge from external databases. This enhances the accuracy and credibility of the generation, particularly for knowledge-intensive tasks, and allows for continuous knowledge updates and integration of domain-specific information. RAG synergistically merges LLMs' intrinsic knowledge with the vast, dynamic repositories of external databases. This comprehensive review paper offers a detailed examination of the progression of RAG paradigms, encompassing the Naive RAG, the Advanced RAG, and the Modular RAG. It meticulously scrutinizes the tripartite foundation of RAG frameworks, which includes the retrieval, the generation and the augmentation techniques. The paper highlights the state-of-the-art technologies embedded in each of these critical components, providing a profound understanding of the advancements in RAG systems. Furthermore, this paper introduces up-to-date evaluation framework and benchmark. At the end, this article delineates the challenges currently faced and points out prospective avenues for research and development.

Siqi Wang, Chao Liang, Yunfan Gao et al.

Industrial parks are critical to urban economic growth. Yet, their development often encounters challenges stemming from imbalances between industrial requirements and urban services, underscoring the need for strategic planning and operations. This paper introduces IndustryScopeKG, a pioneering large-scale multi-modal, multi-level industrial park knowledge graph, which integrates diverse urban data including street views, corporate, socio-economic, and geospatial information, capturing the complex relationships and semantics within industrial parks. Alongside this, we present the IndustryScopeGPT framework, which leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) with Monte Carlo Tree Search to enhance tool-augmented reasoning and decision-making in Industrial Park Planning and Operation (IPPO). Our work significantly improves site recommendation and functional planning, demonstrating the potential of combining LLMs with structured datasets to advance industrial park management. This approach sets a new benchmark for intelligent IPPO research and lays a robust foundation for advancing urban industrial development. The dataset and related code are available at https://github.com/Tongji-KGLLM/IndustryScope.