惯性聚合 高效追踪和阅读你感兴趣的博客、新闻、科技资讯
阅读原文 在惯性聚合中打开

推荐订阅源

D
DataBreaches.Net
钛媒体:引领未来商业与生活新知
钛媒体:引领未来商业与生活新知
云风的 BLOG
云风的 BLOG
B
Blog
博客园 - Franky
I
InfoQ
A
About on SuperTechFans
博客园_首页
L
LangChain Blog
量子位
腾讯CDC
Microsoft Security Blog
Microsoft Security Blog
博客园 - 【当耐特】
美团技术团队
V
V2EX
Apple Machine Learning Research
Apple Machine Learning Research
雷峰网
雷峰网
MongoDB | Blog
MongoDB | Blog
Microsoft Azure Blog
Microsoft Azure Blog
月光博客
月光博客
T
The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
P
Proofpoint News Feed
G
Google Developers Blog
Last Week in AI
Last Week in AI

math.ST updates on arXiv.org

What is Learnable in Valiant's Theory of the Learnable? Learning Perturbations to Extrapolate Your LLM Byzantine-Robust Distributed Sparse Learning Revisited The Sample Complexity of Multiple Change Point Identification under Bandit Feedback A proximal gradient algorithm for composite log-concave sampling Model-based Bootstrap of Controlled Markov Chains Approximation of Maximally Monotone Operators : A Graph Convergence Perspective Posterior Contraction Rates for Sparse Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks in Anisotropic Besov Spaces MIST: Reliable Streaming Decision Trees for Online Class-Incremental Learning via McDiarmid Bound A Spectral Framework for Closed-Form Relative Density Estimation Fast Rates for Offline Contextual Bandits with Forward-KL Regularization under Single-Policy Concentrability Higher-Order Equilibrium Tracking for EM-Compressible Online Estimation Scaling Limits of Long-Context Transformers A Note on Non-Negative $L_1$-Approximating Polynomials Susceptibilities and Patterning: A Primer on Linear Response in Bayesian Learning Linear Response Estimators for Singular Statistical Models Statistical inference with belief functions: A survey Robust stochastic first order methods in heavy-tailed noise via medoid mini-batch gradient sampling Every Feedforward Neural Network Definable in an o-Minimal Structure Has Finite Sample Complexity Adaptive auditing of AI systems with anytime-valid guarantees Locally Near Optimal Piecewise Linear Regression in High Dimensions via Difference of Max-Affine Functions Risk-Controlled Post-Processing of Decision Policies Covariate Balancing and Riesz Regression Should Be Guided by the Neyman Orthogonal Score in Debiased Machine Learning A Unified Pair-GRPO Family: From Implicit to Explicit Preference Constraints for Stable and General RL Alignment Time-Inhomogeneous Preconditioned Langevin Dynamics A Fine-Grained Understanding of Uniform Convergence for Halfspaces CITE: Anytime-Valid Statistical Inference in LLM Self-Consistency Ratio-based Loss Functions Optimal Confidence Band for Kernel Gradient Flow Estimator A renormalization-group inspired lattice-based framework for piecewise generalized linear models
Functional Properties of the Focal-Entropy
Jaimin Shah, Martina Cardone, Alex Dytso · 2026-03-03 · via math.ST updates on arXiv.org

The focal-loss has become a widely used alternative to cross-entropy in class-imbalanced classification problems, particularly in computer vision. Despite its empirical success, a systematic information-theoretic study of the focal-loss remains incomplete. In this work, we adopt a distributional viewpoint and study the focal-entropy, a focal-loss analogue of the cross-entropy. Our analysis establishes conditions for finiteness, convexity, and continuity of the focal-entropy, and provides various asymptotic characterizations. We prove the existence and uniqueness of the focal-entropy minimizer, describe its structure, and show that it can depart significantly from the data distribution. In particular, we rigorously show that the focal-loss amplifies mid-range probabilities, suppresses high-probability outcomes, and, under extreme class imbalance, induces an over-suppression regime in which very small probabilities are further diminished. These results, which are also experimentally validated, offer a theoretical foundation for understanding the focal-loss and clarify the trade-offs that it introduces when applied to imbalanced learning tasks.