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Experiences with a weighted decision tree learner

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Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XVII

Abstract

Machine learning algorithms for inferring decision trees typically choose a single “best” tree to describe the training data. Recent research has shown that classification performance can be significantly improved by voting predictions of multiple, independently produced decision trees. This paper describes an algorithm, OB1, that produces a weighted sum over many possible models. Model weights are determined by the prior probability of the model, as well as the performance of the model during training. We describe an implementation of OBI that includes all possible decision trees as well as naive Bayesian models within a single option tree. Constructing all possible decision trees is very expensive, growing exponentially in the number of attributes. However it is possible to use the internal structure of the option tree to avoid recomputing values. In addition, the current implementation allows the option tree to be depth bounded.

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag London

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Cleary, J.G., Trigg, L.E., Holmes, G., Hall, M. (2001). Experiences with a weighted decision tree learner. In: Bramer, M., Preece, A., Coenen, F. (eds) Research and Development in Intelligent Systems XVII. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0269-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0269-4_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-403-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0269-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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