Lecture

Supervised Learning: Decision Trees

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In course

MGT-448: Statistical inference and machine learning

This course aims to provide graduate students a thorough grounding in the methods, theory, mathematics and algorithms needed to do research and applications in machine learning. The course covers topics from machine learning, classical statistics, and data ...

Description

This lecture covers the concept of supervised learning with decision trees, explaining how to make decisions based on features to predict outcomes. It delves into information gain and entropy calculations to select the best features for classification.

Instructor

Negar Kiyavash

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Mohammad Shahverdikondori, Badri Mohammad Reza, Arefe Boushehrian, Sepehr Elahi, Mohammadsadegh Khorasani, Mohammadsaeed Masiha, Amir Mohammad Aboueimehrizi Past EPFL PhD Students Sina Akbari, Ehsan Mokhtarian, Yaroslav Kivva, Fateme Jamshidi Courses Causal inference MGT-416 Students will learn the core concepts and techniques of network analysis with emphasis on causal inference. Theory andapplication will be balanced, with students working directly with networ

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Related concepts (32)

Information gain (decision tree)

In information theory and machine learning, information gain is a synonym for Kullback–Leibler divergence; the amount of information gained about a random variable or signal from observing another random variable. However, in the context of decision trees, the term is sometimes used synonymously with mutual information, which is the conditional expected value of the Kullback–Leibler divergence of the univariate probability distribution of one variable from the conditional distribution of this variable given the other one.

Mutual information

In probability theory and information theory, the mutual information (MI) of two random variables is a measure of the mutual dependence between the two variables. More specifically, it quantifies the "amount of information" (in units such as shannons (bits), nats or hartleys) obtained about one random variable by observing the other random variable. The concept of mutual information is intimately linked to that of entropy of a random variable, a fundamental notion in information theory that quantifies the expected "amount of information" held in a random variable.

Rényi entropy

In information theory, the Rényi entropy is a quantity that generalizes various notions of entropy, including Hartley entropy, Shannon entropy, collision entropy, and min-entropy. The Rényi entropy is named after Alfréd Rényi, who looked for the most general way to quantify information while preserving additivity for independent events. In the context of fractal dimension estimation, the Rényi entropy forms the basis of the concept of generalized dimensions. The Rényi entropy is important in ecology and statistics as index of diversity.

Entropy (information theory)

In information theory, the entropy of a random variable is the average level of "information", "surprise", or "uncertainty" inherent to the variable's possible outcomes. Given a discrete random variable , which takes values in the alphabet and is distributed according to : where denotes the sum over the variable's possible values. The choice of base for , the logarithm, varies for different applications. Base 2 gives the unit of bits (or "shannons"), while base e gives "natural units" nat, and base 10 gives units of "dits", "bans", or "hartleys".

Decision tree

A decision tree is a decision support hierarchical model that uses a tree-like model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility. It is one way to display an algorithm that only contains conditional control statements. Decision trees are commonly used in operations research, specifically in decision analysis, to help identify a strategy most likely to reach a goal, but are also a popular tool in machine learning.

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