Seeing the Whole Through the Parts: Discovering Objects through Semantic Part Mining in Weak Supervision
Abstract
Weakly Supervised Object Detection (WSOD) is fundamentally limited by instance ambiguity, manifesting as either part domination (focusing on discriminative fragments) or merged detection (confusing objects with context). Unlike existing approaches that rely on object-level patterns, we draw inspiration from human cognition, where objects are perceived structurally by integrating constituent parts. Building on this perspective, we propose P2WDet (Part-to-Whole Detection), a novel framework that shifts WSOD from traditional instance selection to semantic reconstruction. P2WDet comprises three systematic stages: (1) constructing a comprehensive visually-grounded part vocabulary leveraging large language models; (2) training dedicated part detectors by mining consistent patterns from cross-image proposal clusters; and (3) assembling detected parts into complete objects to enforce structural consistency. Extensive experiments show that P2WDet not only outperforms state-of-the-art methods on standard benchmarks but also demonstrates superior generalization in open-world settings. Furthermore, by decoupling detection from fixed category labels, P2WDet enables the flexible detection of novel or ambiguous objects defined solely by their components.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yuanzhao Zhai | 79 | 100 Correcting Large Language Model Behavior via Influence Function (2025) Others 100 Preference-Strength-Aware Self-Improving Alignment with Generative Preference Models (2025) Others 100 Uncertainty-penalized reinforcement learning from human feedback with diversified reward LoRA ensembles (2026) Others |
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| 2 | Yong Li 0004 | 59 | 100 Consistency maintenance in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others 100 Group undo framework and algorithms in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others 100 PEACE: Towards Efficient Project-Level Efficiency Optimization via Hybrid Code Editing (2025) Others |
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| 3 | Tianyu Wang 0028 | 30 | 100 Dual Discrepancy-Based Continuation Learning for Hybrid Supervised Multi-View 3D Object Detection (2025) Others 19 Bid2X: Revealing Dynamics of Bidding Environment in Online Advertising from A Foundation Model Lens (2025) Advertising and Auction Mechanisms 19 An Adaptable Budget Planner for Enhancing Budget-Constrained Auto-Bidding in Online Advertising (2025) Advertising and Auction Mechanisms |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Ge Li 0001 | 78 |
Area-chair candidates (5)
| Ge Li 0001 assigned | 78 | 4 papers | |
| Dacheng Tao | 58 | 5 papers | |
| Hao Fei 0001 | 50 | 4 papers | |
| Xun Yang 0001 COI: co-author | 43 | 4 papers | |
| Fernando Diaz 0001 | 32 | 12 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yuanzhao Zhai assigned | 79 | 3 | 100 Correcting Large Language Model Behavior via Influence Function (2025) Others 100 Preference-Strength-Aware Self-Improving Alignment with Generative Preference Models (2025) Others |
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| 3 | Fangzhou Yao | 67 | 3 | 100 Zero-1-to-3: Domain-Level Zero-Shot Cognitive Diagnosis via One Batch of Early-Bird Students towards Three Diagnostic Objectives (2024) Others 100 Denoising Programming Knowledge Tracing with a Code Graph-based Tuning Adaptor (2025) Others |
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| 4 | Yong Li 0004 assigned | 59 | 3 | 100 Consistency maintenance in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others 100 Group undo framework and algorithms in real-time collaborative image editing systems (2003) Others |
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| 6 | Zhe Xu 0009 | 52 | 3 | 100 Generalized Zero-Shot Learning via Disentangled Representation (2021) Others 100 Class-Incremental Unsupervised Domain Adaptation via Pseudo-Label Distillation (2024) Others |
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| 7 | Junjie Zhou 0001 | 50 | 3 | 100 Fat: Field-Aware Transformer for 3D Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation (2023) Others 100 FAT: Field-Aware Transformer for Point Cloud Segmentation With Adaptive Attention Fields (2024) Others |
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| 9 | Sajad Ebrahimi 0001 | 48 | 3 | 100 RottenReviews: Benchmarking Review Quality with Human and LLM-Based Judgments (2025) Others 100 Building Trustworthy Peer Review Quality Assessment Systems (2025) Others |
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| 10 | Amir Ingber | 47 | 3 | 100 Compressing Tabular Data via Pairwise Dependencies (2017) Others 59 Non-Asymptotic Design of Finite State Universal Predictors for Individual Sequences (2006) Efficient Retrieval and Indexing Systems › Others |
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| 11 | Gyuseok Lee | 47 | 3 | 100 Harmonic Dataset Distillation for Time Series Forecasting (2026) Others 23 Continual Collaborative Distillation for Recommender System (2024) Efficient and Lightweight Graph Collaborative Filtering |
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| 13 | Weizhou Shen | 43 | 3 | 100 Mutual-Taught for Co-adapting Policy and Reward Models (2025) Others 100 Relational Graph Attention Network for Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis (2020) Others |
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| 14 | Saber Zerhoudi | 43 | 3 | 100 The Third Search Futures Workshop at ECIR'26 (2026) Others 100 The First International Workshop on Open Web Search (WOWS) (2024) Others |
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| 15 | Jimeng Sun 0001 | 42 | 3 | 100 GenRES: Rethinking Evaluation for Generative Relation Extraction in the Era of Large Language Models (2024) Others 100 Incremental tensor analysis: Theory and applications (2008) Others |
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| 16 | Jingwei Cheng | 41 | 3 | 61 Frame First, Then Extract: A Frame-Semantic Reasoning Pipeline for Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others 61 Re-Cent: A Relation-Centric Framework for Joint Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others |
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| 17 | Romain Deffayet | 41 | 3 | 100 Disentangled Object-Centric Image Representation for Robotic Manipulation (2025) Others 100 Distributional Reinforcement Learning with Dual Expectile-Quantile Regression (2025) Others |
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| 18 | Maryam Amirizaniani | 41 | 3 | 59 Mind Over Machine: Evaluating Theory of Mind Reasoning in LLMs and Humans (2025) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others 59 Can LLMs Reason Like Humans? Assessing Theory of Mind Reasoning in LLMs for Open-Ended Questions (2024) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others |
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| 19 | Jianghong Ma | 41 | 3 | 100 Semantic-Gap-Oriented Feature Selection and Classifier Construction in Multilabel Learning (2022) Others 100 Multilabel Classification With Label-Specific Features and Classifiers: A Coarse- and Fine-Tuned Framework (2021) Others |
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| 20 | Qisheng Hu | 40 | 3 | 100 From Moments to Milestones: Incremental Timeline Summarization Leveraging Large Language Models (2024) Others 30 Just What You Desire: Constrained Timeline Summarization with Self-Reflection for Enhanced Relevance (2025) Multi-hop and Complex Reasoning QA |
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| 21 | Wenyu Huang | 39 | 3 | 64 Retrieval Augmented Generation with Rich Answer Encoding (2023) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others 39 A Large-scale Offer Alignment Model for Partitioning Filtering and Matching Product Offers (2024) Entity Linking and Alignment |
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| 22 | Xingyu Tan 0001 | 38 | 3 | 100 Higher-Order Peak Decomposition (2023) Others 23 Paths-over-Graph: Knowledge Graph Empowered Large Language Model Reasoning (2025) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
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| 23 | Wenlin Zhang 0001 | 37 | 3 | 100 Robust kernel principal component analysis with optimal mean (2022) Others 60 Graph Convolution RPCA With Adaptive Graph (2022) Graph Neural Networks for Web and Recommendation › Others |
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| 24 | Mingdai Yang | 36 | 3 | 100 Deep Reinforcement Learning of Volume-Guided Progressive View Inpainting for 3D Point Scene Completion From a Single Depth Image (2019) Others 100 A Hybrid Optical-Electrical Analog Deep Learning Accelerator Using Incoherent Optical Signals (2021) Others |
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| 25 | Fu Zhang 0001 | 36 | 3 | 61 Frame First, Then Extract: A Frame-Semantic Reasoning Pipeline for Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others 61 Re-Cent: A Relation-Centric Framework for Joint Zero-Shot Relation Triplet Extraction (2025) Knowledge Graphs and Entity-Centric Retrieval › Others |
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| 26 | Xinhang Li 0001 | 36 | 3 | 100 Towards Automatic ICD Coding via Knowledge Enhanced Multi-Task Learning (2023) Others 60 Corrections to "Contrastive Graph Pooling for Explainable Classification of Brain Networks" (2024) Graph Neural Networks for Web and Recommendation › Others |
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| 27 | Julian J. McAuley | 35 | 3 | 62 Translation-based factorization machines for sequential recommendation (2018) Sequential and Session-Based Recommendation › Others 62 Translation-based Recommendation: A Scalable Method for Modeling Sequential Behavior (2018) Sequential and Session-Based Recommendation › Others |
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| 28 | Yingyi Zhang 0001 | 34 | 3 | 100 Learning How and What to Memorize: Cognition-Inspired Two-Stage Optimization for Evolving Memory (2026) Others 100 When coordinated response meets complexity in catastrophes: Unlocking cross-sectoral emergency resource sharing (2026) Others |
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| 29 | Sruthi Gorantla | 34 | 3 | 100 Increasing Impact of Mobile Health Programs: SAHELI for Maternal and Child Care (2023) Others 59 Socially Fair Center-Based and Linear Subspace Clustering (2023) Fairness, Bias and Trust in IR and RecSys › Others |
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| 30 | Ori Yoran | 33 | 3 | 61 The KoLMogorov Test: Compression by Code Generation (2025) Text Representation and Language Models › Others 61 SCROLLS: Standardized CompaRison Over Long Language Sequences (2022) Question Answering and Reading Comprehension › Others |
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| 31 | Navve Wasserman | 33 | 3 | 61 Paint by Inpaint: Learning to Add Image Objects by Removing Them First (2025) Generative Models for Recommendation and Content › Others 18 DocReRank: Single-Page Hard Negative Query Generation for Training Multi-Modal RAG Rerankers (2025) Universal Multimodal Embedding and MLLM Retrieval |
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| 33 | Hung Vinh Tran | 32 | 3 | 60 LODENet: A Holistic Approach to Offline Handwritten Chinese and Japanese Text Line Recognition (2020) Multimodal and Cross-Modal Retrieval › Others 27 A Thorough Performance Benchmarking on Lightweight Embedding-based Recommender Systems (2025) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
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| 34 | Tianzhe Zhao | 32 | 3 | 100 Improved prototypical network for active few-shot learning (2023) Others 44 PathReasoner: Modeling Reasoning Path with Equivalent Extension for Logical Question Answering (2024) Search Agents and LLM Reasoning › Others |
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| 35 | Shijie Wang 0002 | 31 | 3 | 64 A Survey on RAG Meeting LLMs: Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models (2024) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others 64 Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Models: Data Management and System Design (2025) Retrieval-Augmented Generation › Others |