Decision Tree Advantages
Amongst other data mining methods, decision trees have various advantages:
- Simple to understand and interpret. People are able to understand decision tree models after a brief explanation.
- Requires little data preparation. Other techniques often require data normalisation, dummy variables need to be created and blank values to be removed.
- Able to handle both numerical and categorical data. Other techniques are usually specialised in analysing datasets that have only one type of variable. Ex: relation rules can be used only with nominal variables while neural networks can be used only with numerical variables.
- Uses a white box model. If a given situation is observable in a model the explanation for the condition is easily explained by boolean logic. An example of a black box model is an artificial neural network since the explanation for the results is difficult to understand.
- Possible to validate a model using statistical tests. That makes it possible to account for the reliability of the model.
- Robust. Performs well even if its assumptions are somewhat violated by the true model from which the data were generated.
- Performs well with large data in a short time. Large amounts of data can be analysed using standard computing resources.
Read more about this topic: Decision Tree Learning
Famous quotes containing the words decision, tree and/or advantages:
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:10-13.
“Men hear gladly of the power of blood or race. Every body likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, nor to laws and traditions, nor to fortune, but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)