Chapter 5. Divide and Conquer – Classification Using Decision Trees and Rules

While deciding between several job offers with various levels of pay and benefits, many people begin by making lists of pros and cons, and eliminate options based on simple rules. For instance, ''if I have to commute for more than an hour, I will be unhappy.'' Or, ''if I make less than $50k, I won't be able to support my family.'' In this way, the complex and difficult decision of predicting one's future happiness can be reduced to a series of simple decisions.

This chapter covers decision trees and rule learners—two machine learning methods that also make complex decisions from sets of simple choices. These methods then present their knowledge in the form of logical structures that can be understood with no statistical knowledge. This aspect makes these models particularly useful for business strategy and process improvement.

By the end of...