New method learns representations for decision forests using input perturbation.
problem Decision forests struggle with raw structured data and lack effective representations.
method Approximate decision forest gradients through input perturbation.
result Effective representation learning for decision forests without structural changes.
Decision forests, including Random Forests and Gradient Boosting Trees, have recently demonstrated state-of-the-art performance in a variety of machine learning settings. Decision forests are typically ensembles of axis-aligned decision trees; that is, trees that split only along feature dimensions. In contrast, many r…
Random forest and deep neural network are two schools of effective classification methods in machine learning. While the random forest is robust irrespective of the data domain, the deep neural network has advantages in handling high dimensional data. In view that a differentiable neural decision forest can be added to…
We optimize large Random Forests into faster, smaller decision diagrams.
problem Efficiency and size of large Random Forests.
method Aggregating large Random Forests into a single, semantically equivalent decision diagram.
result Significant speed-ups and reduction in data structure size.
Decision forests learn to model text by evaluating categorical-set conditions.
problem Decision forests cannot directly model text features.
method Defined and learned conditions for categorical-set features, enabling efficient text modeling.
result Decision forests can now directly model text features.
Improved random forest models enhance machine learning predictions.
problem Equal weights for random forest base decision trees are not optimal.
method Proposes algorithms to modify weighting strategy of regular random forest.
result Numerical results show significant improvements over regular random forest.
Optimizes decision-making with uncertain variables using auxiliary observations.
problem Contextual stochastic optimization problems with uncertain variables and rich auxiliary observations.
method Trains forest decision policies by growing trees that optimize downstream decision quality, using optimization perturbation analysis for efficient approximations.
result Proves asymptotic optimality and empirical validation of the method's performance and efficiency.
We consider the problem of learning a forest of nonlinear decision rules with general loss functions. The standard methods employ boosted decision trees such as Adaboost for exponential loss and Friedman's gradient boosting for general loss. In contrast to these traditional boosting algorithms that treat a tree learner…
Many real-world regression problems demand a measure of the uncertainty associated with each prediction. Standard decision forests deliver efficient state-of-the-art predictive performance, but high-quality uncertainty estimates are lacking. Gaussian processes (GPs) deliver uncertainty estimates, but scaling GPs to lar…
A new method for decision tree selection in recommendation systems.
problem Feature-based selection of a single tree from an ensemble for dynamic interpretation.
method A multi-armed contextual bandit recommendation framework that trains a system on top of Random Forests to identify the most relevant tree.
result The dynamic method outperforms an independent CART tree and is comparable to Random Forest in predictive performance.
A fast method for finding counterfactual explanations for decision forests.
problem Finding counterfactual explanations for decision forests efficiently.
method Constrain optimization to data-populated regions, reducing to nearest-neighbor search.
result Very fast and realistic counterfactual explanations for decision forests.
We propose random hinge forests, a simple, efficient, and novel variant of decision forests. Importantly, random hinge forests can be readily incorporated as a general component within arbitrary computation graphs that are optimized end-to-end with stochastic gradient descent or variants thereof. We derive random hinge…
Ensembles of randomized decision trees, usually referred to as random forests, are widely used for classification and regression tasks in machine learning and statistics. Random forests achieve competitive predictive performance and are computationally efficient to train and test, making them excellent candidates for r…
SMERF improves distance learning with decision forests.
problem Subpar inference and prediction due to poor distances.
method Decision forest algorithm for distance learning.
result Empirically demonstrates ability to approximate arbitrary distances and identify features.
We analyze the consistency of decision trees and random forests in regression.
problem Consistency of decision trees and random forests in regression.
method Elementary proofs following classical arguments for smoothing methods.
result Establish weak and almost sure convergence of honest trees and forest averages to the true regression function.
Decision forests are widely used for classification and regression tasks. A lesser known property of tree-based methods is that one can construct a proximity matrix from the tree(s), and these proximity matrices are induced kernels. While there has been extensive research on the applications and properties of kernels, …
This paper develops a new method to model treatment effects that are heterogeneous across different quantiles.
problem Modeling treatment effects that vary across different quantiles of the outcome distribution.
method The paper combines quantile classification with local polynomial estimation to build a decision tree and forest.
result The proposed QLPRT and QLPRF methods provide a new way to estimate and infer heterogeneous treatment effects.
Random forests perform bootstrap-aggregation by sampling the training samples with replacement. This enables the evaluation of out-of-bag error which serves as a internal cross-validation mechanism. Our motivation lies in using the unsampled training samples to improve each decision tree in the ensemble. We study the e…
Optimizes random forest inference by defining step order to maximize accuracy.
problem Limited inference time in resource-constrained systems.
method Designs anytime random forest algorithm on step granularity, proposing optimal step order.
result Backward Squirrel Order performs nearly as well as the optimal step order.
Two algorithms for interpreting and boosting tree-based models using rule covering.
problem Interpreting and boosting tree-based ensemble methods.
method Mathematical programming models constructed from decision tree rules.
result Selects a few rules that closely match the accuracy of the model.
Random forest is widely exploited as an ensemble learning method. In many practical applications, however, there is still a significant challenge to learn from imbalanced data. To alleviate this limitation, we propose a deep dynamic boosted forest (DDBF), a novel ensemble algorithm that incorporates the notion of hard …
Enhances interpretability of functional survival models.
problem Lack of interpretability in functional survival models limits practical use.
method Introduces novel methods to enhance interpretability of FST and explainability of FRSF.
result Proposed methods yield efficient, easy-to-understand decision trees.
This paper improves deep forest models with soft routing and topology learning.
problem Expensive computational costs and lack of interpretability in deep neural networks.
method Soft routing in probabilistic trees and topology learning for joint optimization.
result Empowered deep forests achieve better performance with reduced model complexity.
Single tree outperforms random forest in testing accuracy.
problem The challenge of improving single decision tree performance.
method Gradient-based entire tree optimization framework, scaled sigmoid approximation, numerical stability algorithm, subtree polish strategy.
result Optimized single tree outperforms classic random forest by 2.03% on average.
New random forest algorithms for PU learning minimize risk directly.
problem Learning from positive and unlabeled data.
method Recursive greedy risk minimization for decision trees.
result Efficient PU random forest algorithm with robustness and low hyperparameter tuning.
This paper proposes a novel type of random forests called a denoising random forests that are robust against noises contained in test samples. Such noise-corrupted samples cause serious damage to the estimation performances of random forests, since unexpected child nodes are often selected and the leaf nodes that the i…
Autoencoder neural network is implemented to estimate the missing data. Genetic algorithm is implemented for network optimization and estimating the missing data. Missing data is treated as Missing At Random mechanism by implementing maximum likelihood algorithm. The network performance is determined by calculating the…
A new random forest algorithm uncovers feature interdependencies better than traditional methods.
problem Tackles the sub-optimality of greedy decision tree implementations in random forests.
method Presented a 'stepwise lookahead' variation of random forests that considers multiple split nodes simultaneously.
result Significantly outperforms greedy random forests in uncovering feature interdependencies, especially in high-noise environments.
Random forest predicts catastrophe bond spreads with 93% accuracy.
problem Predicting spreads in the primary catastrophe bond market.
method Random forest approach using all information in offering circulars.
result Random forest explains 93% of spread variability, significantly better than linear regression (47%).
We introduce canonical correlation forests (CCFs), a new decision tree ensemble method for classification and regression. Individual canonical correlation trees are binary decision trees with hyperplane splits based on local canonical correlation coefficients calculated during training. Unlike axis-aligned alternatives…
A new decision tree variant improves linear model performance.
problem Improving decision tree performance on non-linear data.
method Extremely random tree with non-linear data transformation and linear observer.
result Outperforms linear models on benchmark dataset.
We present a new way of constructing an ensemble classifier, named the Guided Random Forest (GRAF) in the sequel. GRAF extends the idea of building oblique decision trees with localized partitioning to obtain a global partitioning. We show that global partitioning bridges the gap between decision trees and boosting alg…
This paper analyzes Mean Decrease Impurity (MDI) variable importance in random forests.
problem Lack of interpretability in random forest variable importances.
method Analysis of Mean Decrease Impurity (MDI) in random forests.
result MDI provides a variance decomposition of the output when variables are independent and there are no interactions.
Deep forests enhance expressiveness exponentially with depth, not width or tree size.
problem Understanding the role of depth, width, and tree size in deep forest performance.
method Provided upper and lower bounds on deep forest approximation complexity.
result Depth exponentially enhances deep forest expressiveness.
Improved GAS models using trees and forests for better forecasts.
problem Improving forecasts from GAS models to avoid curse of dimensionality.
method Localized parameters using decision trees and random forests.
result Significantly outperform baseline GAS model in empirical analyses.
Machine learning improves kidney transplant outcomes prediction.
problem Improving prediction of kidney transplant success.
method Random forest machine learning model trained on kidney donor risk index data.
result Random forest predicted 2,148 more successful transplants than the risk index.
ACFS optimizes spectral risk under decision-dependent uncertainty using adaptive forest sampling.
problem Minimizing spectral risk with decision-dependent uncertainty.
method ACFS integrates Generalised Random Forests, CEM-guided exploration, rank-weighted augmentation, and multi-start refinement.
result ACFS achieves lowest median oracle spectral risk on both benchmarks.
Deep networks and forests perform differently with small samples.
problem Comparing deep networks and decision forests for small sample sizes.
method Unified view of both methods as partition and vote schemes, empirical comparison on various datasets.
result Forests excel with small tabular and structured data, deep nets better with larger samples.
There is a large literature explaining why AdaBoost is a successful classifier. The literature on AdaBoost focuses on classifier margins and boosting's interpretation as the optimization of an exponential likelihood function. These existing explanations, however, have been pointed out to be incomplete. A random forest …
Attention augments forest for tabular data accuracy.
problem Training tabular data models with high accuracy and efficiency.
method Tree Attention Block (TAB) in differentiable forest framework.
result Attention augmented differentiable forest achieves comparable and sometimes higher accuracy than GBDT models.
Customer behavior is often assumed to follow weak rationality, which implies that adding a product to an assortment will not increase the choice probability of another product in that assortment. However, an increasing amount of research has revealed that customers are not necessarily rational when making decisions. In…
Decision trees can be biased towards minority class, contrary to belief.
problem Bias in decision trees towards minority class in imbalanced datasets.
method Critical evaluation of past literature, specific conditions analysis, tree-fitting adjustments, and post-hoc calibration methods.
result Decision trees can be biased towards minority class under specific conditions, not always towards majority.
The paper proposes a method to improve random forest classification accuracy by weighting trees based on their decision path reliability.
problem Random forests' uniform voting fails to correct errors in regions where incorrect tree representations outnumber correct ones.
method The paper introduces using the structural pattern of each tree's decision path as an instance-adaptive reliability signal to identify and weight more reliable trees.
result Using the proposed method yields a statistically significant accuracy improvement over RF on 36 binary classification benchmarks.
In Random Forests, proximity distances are a metric representation of data into decision space. By observing how changes in input map to the movement of instances in this space we are able to determine the independent contribution of each feature to the decision-making process. For binary feature vectors, this process …
GeFs use deep generative models to enhance prediction robustness and uncertainty.
problem Lack of principled methods to manipulate uncertainty in decision trees and random forests.
method Exploits Generative Forests (GeFs), a deep probabilistic model that extends Random Forests to represent full joint distributions.
result GeFs are uncertainty-aware classifiers capable of measuring robustness and detecting out-of-distribution samples.
CDF uses centroids to split features for high-dimensional classification.
problem High-dimensional classification problems with complex class structures.
method CDF introduces a centroid-driven splitting strategy in decision trees.
result CDF outperforms conventional methods in high-dimensional classification.
Improves decision tree performance by correcting split selection errors.
problem Invalid statistical guarantees in split selection for decision trees.
method Introduces anytime-valid inference to provide valid statistical guarantees.
result Provides anytime-valid control of false splits under arbitrary data streams.
The paper challenges the use of decision trees for pointwise inference due to slow convergence rates.
problem The slow convergence rates of decision trees in uniform norm, especially with non-vanishing probability.
method Demonstrates the limitations of adaptive recursive partitioning and shows how random forests can improve performance.
result Decision trees can fail to achieve polynomial rates of convergence in uniform norm, even with pruning.