Divide and Conquer – Classification Using Decision Trees and Rules
When deciding between job offers, many people begin by making lists of pros and cons, then eliminate options using simple rules. For instance, they may decide, “If I have to commute for more than an hour, I will be unhappy,” or “If I make less than $50K, I can’t support my family.” In this way, the complex decision of predicting one’s future career 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 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 this chapter, you will have learned:
- How trees and rules “...
