Super-Level-Set Regression: Conditional Quantiles via Volume Minimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Braun, Sacha, Jordan, Michael I., Bach, Francis
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Braun, Sacha
Jordan, Michael I.
Bach, Francis
author_facet Braun, Sacha
Jordan, Michael I.
Bach, Francis
contents Constructing minimum-volume prediction regions that satisfy conditional coverage is a fundamental challenge in multivariate regression. Standard approaches rely on explicitly estimating the full conditional density and subsequently thresholding it. This two-step plug-in process is notoriously difficult, sensitive to estimation errors, and computationally expensive. One would like to instead optimize the region directly. Formulating a direct solution is challenging, however, because it requires minimizing a volume objective that is coupled with the conditional quantiles of the model's own estimation error. In this work, we address this challenge. We introduce super-level-set regression (SLS), a novel mathematical framework that successfully resolves this implicit coupling, allowing us to directly parameterize and optimize the geometric boundaries of the target conditional level sets. By bypassing full distribution estimation and leveraging flexible volume-preserving frontier functions, our approach natively captures complex, multimodal, and disjoint conditional structures end-to-end. Ultimately, SLS offers a new perspective on multivariate conditional quantile regression, replacing the restrictive assumptions of density-first methods with a direct geometric optimization strategy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06210
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Super-Level-Set Regression: Conditional Quantiles via Volume Minimization
Braun, Sacha
Jordan, Michael I.
Bach, Francis
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Applications
Methodology
Constructing minimum-volume prediction regions that satisfy conditional coverage is a fundamental challenge in multivariate regression. Standard approaches rely on explicitly estimating the full conditional density and subsequently thresholding it. This two-step plug-in process is notoriously difficult, sensitive to estimation errors, and computationally expensive. One would like to instead optimize the region directly. Formulating a direct solution is challenging, however, because it requires minimizing a volume objective that is coupled with the conditional quantiles of the model's own estimation error. In this work, we address this challenge. We introduce super-level-set regression (SLS), a novel mathematical framework that successfully resolves this implicit coupling, allowing us to directly parameterize and optimize the geometric boundaries of the target conditional level sets. By bypassing full distribution estimation and leveraging flexible volume-preserving frontier functions, our approach natively captures complex, multimodal, and disjoint conditional structures end-to-end. Ultimately, SLS offers a new perspective on multivariate conditional quantile regression, replacing the restrictive assumptions of density-first methods with a direct geometric optimization strategy.
title Super-Level-Set Regression: Conditional Quantiles via Volume Minimization
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Applications
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06210