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MF-LOGP, a new method for determining a single component octanol–water partition coefficients ($$LogP$$$\mathrm{LogP}$) is presented which uses molecular formula as the only input. Octanol–water partition coefficients are useful in many applications, ranging from environmental fate and drug delivery. Currently, partition coefficients are either experimentally measured or predicted as a function of structural fragments, topological descriptors, or thermodynamic properties known or calculated from precise molecular structures. The MF-LOGP method presented here differs from classical methods as it does not require any structural information and uses molecular formula as the sole model input. MF-LOGP is therefore useful for situations in which the structure is unknown or where the use of a low dimensional, easily automatable, and computationally inexpensive calculations is required. MF-LOGP is a random forest algorithm that is trained and tested on 15,377 data points, using 10 features derived from the molecular formula to make$$LogP$$$\mathrm{LogP}$predictions. Using an independent validation set of 2713 data points, MF-LOGP was found to have an average$$RMSE$$$\mathrm{RMSE}$= 0.77 ± 0.007,$$MAE$$$\mathrm{MAE}$= 0.52 ± 0.003, and$${R}^{2}$$$R^2$= 0.83 ± 0.003. This performance fell within the spectrum of performances reported in the published literature for conventional higher dimensional models ($$RMSE$$$\mathrm{RMSE}$= 0.42–1.54,$$MAE$$$\mathrm{MAE}$= 0.09–1.07, and$${R}^{2}$$$R^2$= 0.32–0.95). Compared with existing models, MF-LOGP requires a maximum of ten features and no structural information, thereby providing a practical and yet predictive tool. The development of MF-LOGP provides the groundwork for development of more physical prediction models leveraging big data analytical methods or complex multicomponent mixtures.

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Regression ensembles consisting of a collection of base regression models are often used to improve the estimation/prediction performance of a single regression model. It has been shown that the individual accuracy of the base models and the ensemble diversity are the two key factors affecting the performance of an ensemble. In this paper, we derive a theory for regression ensembles that illustrates the subtle trade-off between individual accuracy and ensemble diversity from the perspective of statistical correlations. Then, inspired by our derived theory, we further propose a novel loss function and a training algorithm for deep learning regression ensembles. We then demonstrate the advantage of our training approach over standard regression ensemble methods including random forest and gradient boosting regressors with both benchmark regression problems and chemical sensor problems involving analysis of Raman spectroscopy. Our key contribution is that our loss function and training algorithm is able to manage diversity explicitly in an ensemble, rather than merely allowing diversity to occur by happenstance.