arXiv AI

Generalized Distribution-Free Semi-Supervised Learning with Risk Rewrite

arXiv:2607. 11947v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Typical semi-supervised learning (SSL) methods rely on distributional assumptions, and their performance degrades when these are violated.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 7

Distribution-free Deviation Bounds and The Role of Domain Knowledge in Learning via Model Selection with Cross-validation Risk Estimation

arXiv:2303. 08777v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Cross-validation is one of the most widely used tools for risk estimation and model selection in statistics and machine learning, yet its theoretical properties when embedded in a learning procedure remain insufficiently understood.

By Diego Marcondes, Cl\'audia Peixoto
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 17

Efficient Robust Learning at the Information-Theoretic Limit

The paper presents a polynomial‑time algorithm for robustly learning Boolean concept classes with respect to a fixed distribution, achieving the optimal error rate of η + ε where η is the noise rate. It builds on Blanc’s earlier, computationally inefficient algorithm and introduces no‑regret learners to overcome the previous limitations. Additionally, the authors provide an efficient method that does not require an ERM oracle for any function class admitting sandwiching polynomials under hypercontractive distributions, including a first polynomial‑time solution for learning halfspaces with Gaussian marginals at error η + ε.

By Adam R. Klivans, Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Sergei Tikhonov, Arsen Vasilyan
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 22

Classification with Abstention Under Class-Conditional Error Constraints

The paper investigates binary classification with abstention under separate class‑conditional error constraints, aiming to minimize abstention while keeping both error types below specified thresholds. It derives the distribution‑free minimax rate of excess abstention risk, introduces surrogate‑loss formulations for computational feasibility with models like neural networks, and provides finite‑sample guarantees for excess surrogate ambiguity risk. The authors also formulate the learning task as a constrained optimization problem, analyze its computational complexity in the convex setting, and empirically evaluate the approach against a competing method on several datasets.

By Mohammadreza M. Kalan, Yuyang Deng, Sanaz Hamidi
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 11

General Quantification of Covariate and Concept Shifts

arXiv:2609. 11918v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generalization under distribution shift remains a core challenge in modern machine learning, yet existing learning bound theory is limited to narrow, idealized settings and is non-estimable from samples.

By Hongbo Chen, Li Charlie Xia
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 26

Learning from a Biased Sample

arXiv:2209. 01754v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: The empirical risk minimization approach to data-driven decision making requires access to training data drawn under the same conditions as those that will be faced when the decision rule is deployed.

By Roshni Sahoo, Lihua Lei, Stefan Wager
arXiv AI
2d ago

Partial AUC Maximization from Positive-unlabeled Data

arXiv:2610.00284v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The partial area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (pAUC) is an important performance metric for binary classification that summarize...

By Atsutoshi Kumagai, Tomoharu Iwata, Taishi Nishiyama, Hiroshi Takahashi, Kazuki Adachi, Yasuhiro Fujiwara
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 21

MTSSL: Meta-Thresholding Semi-Supervised Learning

arXiv:2607. 16363v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: A large body of Semi-supervised Learning~(SSL) algorithms encounter the threshold $\tau$ to select pseudo-labels.

By Shuyang Liu, Ziang Zeng, Ruiqiu Zheng, Jiazheng Wang, Zechen Liu, Wenxi Li, Zhou Yu
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 24

Learning Risk Scores Robust to Unobserved Confounders

The paper introduces a method for learning risk scores that remain reliable even when historical data contain unobserved confounders. By treating propensity weights as uncertain and applying sensitivity analysis with Wasserstein distributionally robust optimization, the authors formulate a robust learning problem solvable via an exponential cone program. Experiments on semi‑synthetic UCI data show the approach improves calibration by up to 29.2% over traditional benchmarks and 11.1% over the state of the art, without harming other performance metrics.

By Ryan Edmonds, Yingxiao Ye, Sina Aghaei, Andr\'es G\'omez, \c{C}a\u{g}{\i}l Ko\c{c}yi\u{g}it, Phebe Vayanos
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 24

Relatively Smart: A New Approach for Instance-Optimal Learning

arXiv:2603. 01346v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: We revisit the framework of Smart PAC learning, which seeks supervised learners which compete with semi-supervised learners that are provided full knowledge of the marginal distribution on unlabeled data.

By Shaddin Dughmi, Alireza F. Pour