General Quantification of Covariate and Concept Shifts

Computer Science > Machine Learning arXiv:2609.11918v1 (cs) [Submitted on 10 Sep 2026] Title:General Quantification of Covariate and Concept Shifts Authors:Hongbo Chen, Li Charlie Xia View a PDF of the paper titled General Quantification of Covariate and Concept Shifts, by Hongbo Chen and 1 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) 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. In this paper, we bridge the gap between theory and practical applications. We first show that existing definition of concept shift breaks when the source and target supports mismatch. Leveraging entropic optimal transport, we propose a key notion: $\gamma^{*}\!$-concept shifts, and derive a general error bound unifying covariate and $\gamma^{*}\!$-concept shifts, which applies to broad loss functions, label spaces, and stochastic labeling. We further develop estimators for these shifts with concentration guarantees, and the DataShifts algorithm, which can quantify distribution shifts and estimate the error bound in most applications - a rigorous and general tool for analyzing learning error under distribution shift. Comments: Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Machine Learning (stat.ML) Cite as: arXiv:2609.11918 [cs.LG] (or arXiv:2609.11918v1 [cs.LG] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.11918 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Li Charlie Xia [view email] [v1] Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:57:52 UTC (617 KB) Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender (What is IArxiv?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)