Papers › HyperSparse Neural Networks: Shifting Exploration to Exploitation through Adaptive...

HyperSparse Neural Networks: Shifting Exploration to Exploitation through Adaptive Regularization

14 Aug 2023arXiv:2308.07163archive 2025-07-28

Patrick Glandorf, Timo Kaiser, Bodo Rosenhahn

Sparse neural networks are a key factor in developing resource-efficient machine learning applications. We propose the novel and powerful sparse learning method Adaptive Regularized Training (ART) to compress dense into sparse networks. Instead of the commonly used binary mask during training to reduce the number of model weights, we inherently shrink weights close to zero in an iterative manner with increasing weight regularization. Our method compresses the pre-trained model knowledge into the weights of highest magnitude. Therefore, we introduce a novel regularization loss named HyperSparse that exploits the highest weights while conserving the ability of weight exploration. Extensive experiments on CIFAR and TinyImageNet show that our method leads to notable performance gains compared to other sparsification methods, especially in extremely high sparsity regimes up to 99.8 percent model sparsity. Additional investigations provide new insights into the patterns that are encoded in weights with high magnitudes.

PaperPDFCodeCode Syntology ran

In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.

For agents, Syntology's MCP tool lists every function and class Syntology harvested from this paper and whether it ran (how to connect): get_harvested_code_for_paper(arxiv_id="2308.07163")

Code

Syntology Ran 9 of 13 code samples harvested from 1 repository linked to this paper; 4 have no recorded run. Of those that ran: 1 ran · our draft was wrong; 8 ran with no contract checked.

By repository: official repository: 13 samples from 1 repository, 9 ran. The run record, sample by sample. “Ran” means executed on a synthesized input, not that the code is correct or reproduces the paper.

greenautoml4fas/hypersparse officialmentioned in papermentioned on GitHubpytorchBSD-3-Clause report

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

13 samples harvested; 9 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 4 have no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-24; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

1ran · our draft was wrong
8ran
4unverified

Licence: 0 of the 13 samples are pointer only, meaning Syntology does not serve that copy's text. This page shows no code text for any sample; each one links to its file in the repository.

Harvested from greenautoml4fas/hypersparse. “Ran” means the sample executed on a synthesized input. It does not mean the output is correct, and nothing here reproduces the paper's results. “Honoured” and “violated” refer to a contract Syntology drafted from the code itself; “our draft was wrong” and “fixture could not drive it” are failures of Syntology's instrument, not of the code.

Each sample ends with its code_sha256, Syntology's identity for that exact code. An agent fetches the stored sample with Syntology's MCP tool get_code(code_sha256="…") (how to connect); click an identity to copy that call.

Repository labels, per sample. official repository: The archive marks this repository official for the paper. named in the paper: The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official. community (archive-listed): In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper. found in paper text by Syntology: Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted. community: Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested. Samples from a repository marked official are listed first. Licence labels name the repository's licence as recorded at harvest. “Pointer only” means Syntology does not serve that copy's text, for one of four reasons: no licence file was found; the licence was not identified; the licence is recorded as permissive but that copy's record is not marked cleared; or the licence is outside the permissive list Syntology serves text under (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD and similar). Some licences outside that list permit redistribution, such as WTFPL, and GPL-3.0 under its conditions; they are simply not on the list. Hover a licence label for the reason. File links open the file on GitHub at the default branch, which may have changed since the harvest.

conv3x3 greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/models/resnet.py official repository ran · our draft was wrong BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · fac5364e2f53c6db · report
get_dataset_constants greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/dataloader.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · a4be7f6f39feb4fc · report
get_mean_and_std greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/misc.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 2c92cec199cf12cd · report
get_param_from_path greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/misc.py official repository ran fingerprinted BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 7701a42a5f6cd7c1 · report
get_train_transforms greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/dataloader.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 61a4d7b1734fc18c · report
get_val_transforms greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/dataloader.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · e32d7c61b1f96c03 · report
get_zero_param greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/misc.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 8619a971d0a789a4 · report
is_prunable_module greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/arg.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 881ad7ec8a7de985 · report
make_layers greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/models/vgg.py official repository ran BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 8683f9fa7a0e16c9 · report
accuracy greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/metrics.py official repository unverified BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 4740868385958c9a · report
applyMask greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/pruner.py official repository unverified BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · d311717a59044479 · report
get_prune_mask greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/pruner.py official repository unverified BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 2efafcf8148e9457 · report
mag_prune greenautoml4fas/hypersparse/utils/pruner.py official repository unverified BSD-3-Clause (permissive) · 6767b6ddeb17cdc3 · report

Tasks

Sparse Learning

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections