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What a confidence interval means in a formulation prediction

Uncertainty quantification for chemists — confidence, extrapolation flags, and when not to trust a number.

  • uncertainty
  • formulation
  • UQ
What a confidence interval means in a formulation prediction

A single predicted Tg or viscosity without uncertainty is a liability. Chemists do not need false precision; they need to know when the model is guessing.

What we show

For each prediction Lavoisier surfaces:

  • the first-principles baseline
  • the ML residual
  • the hybrid total
  • a confidence / interval
  • an extrapolation warning when feature-space neighbours are far

How confidence is built (high level)

We combine ensemble variance with distance to training support in feature space. High variance or large k-NN distance → lower confidence and an out-of-domain flag.

How to use it in the lab

  • High confidence, in-domain: prioritize for experimental confirmation.
  • Low confidence: treat as hypothesis generation, not a go/no-go.
  • Extrapolation flag: redesign the experiment or gather data before scaling.

Uncertainty is not a disclaimer — it is part of the product. Read more on Technology.

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