Detailed Instructions: In this task, we ask you to elaborate the sentence without changing its general meaning. You can do so by explaining further the input sentence, using more precise wording, adding qualifiers and auxiliary information etc.
Q: In mathematics a loss function or cost function is a mathematical function that maps an event , or the values of one or more variables onto a real number .
A:
In mathematical optimization and decision theory , a loss function or cost function is a function that maps an event or values of one or more variables onto a real number intuitively representing some " cost " associated with the event .