Class RegressionTree

java.lang.Object
smile.base.cart.CART
smile.regression.RegressionTree
All Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable, ToDoubleFunction<Tuple>, SHAP<Tuple>, DataFrameRegression, Regression<Tuple>
public class RegressionTree extends CART implements DataFrameRegression
Regression tree. A classification/regression tree can be learned by splitting the training set into subsets based on an attribute value test. This process is repeated on each derived subset in a recursive manner called recursive partitioning.

Classification and Regression Tree techniques have a number of advantages over many of those alternative techniques.

Simple to understand and interpret.
In most cases, the interpretation of results summarized in a tree is very simple. This simplicity is useful not only for purposes of rapid classification of new observations, but can also often yield a much simpler "model" for explaining why observations are classified or predicted in a particular manner.
Able to handle both numerical and categorical data.
Other techniques are usually specialized in analyzing datasets that have only one type of variable.
Tree methods are nonparametric and nonlinear.
The final results of using tree methods for classification or regression can be summarized in a series of (usually few) logical if-then conditions (tree nodes). Therefore, there is no implicit assumption that the underlying relationships between the predictor variables and the dependent variable are linear, follow some specific non-linear link function, or that they are even monotonic in nature. Thus, tree methods are particularly well suited for data mining tasks, where there is often little a priori knowledge nor any coherent set of theories or predictions regarding which variables are related and how. In those types of data analytics, tree methods can often reveal simple relationships between just a few variables that could have easily gone unnoticed using other analytic techniques.
One major problem with classification and regression trees is their high variance. Often a small change in the data can result in a very different series of splits, making interpretation somewhat precarious. Besides, decision-tree learners can create over-complex trees that cause over-fitting. Mechanisms such as pruning are necessary to avoid this problem. Another limitation of trees is the lack of smoothness of the prediction surface.

Some techniques such as bagging, boosting, and random forest use more than one decision tree for their analysis.

See Also:

  • Constructor Details

    • RegressionTree

      public RegressionTree(DataFrame x, Loss loss, StructField response, int maxDepth, int maxNodes, int nodeSize, int mtry, int[] samples, int[][] order)
      Constructor. Fits a regression tree for AdaBoost and Random Forest.
      Parameters:
      x - the data frame of the explanatory variable.
      loss - the loss function.
      response - the metadata of response variable.
      maxDepth - the maximum depth of the tree.
      maxNodes - the maximum number of leaf nodes in the tree.
      nodeSize - the minimum size of leaf nodes.
      mtry - the number of input variables to pick to split on at each node. It seems that sqrt(p) give generally good performance, where p is the number of variables.
      samples - the sample set of instances for stochastic learning. samples[i] is the number of sampling for instance i.
      order - the index of training values in ascending order. Note that only numeric attributes need be sorted.

  • Method Details

    • impurity

      protected double impurity(LeafNode node)
      Description copied from class: CART
      Returns the impurity of node.
      Specified by:
      impurity in class CART
      Parameters:
      node - the node to calculate the impurity.
      Returns:
      the impurity of node.

    • newNode

      protected LeafNode newNode(int[] nodeSamples)
      Description copied from class: CART
      Creates a new leaf node.
      Specified by:
      newNode in class CART
      Parameters:
      nodeSamples - the samples belonging to this node.
      Returns:
      the new leaf node.

    • findBestSplit

      protected Optional<Split> findBestSplit(LeafNode leaf, int j, double impurity, int lo, int hi)
      Description copied from class: CART
      Finds the best split for given column.
      Specified by:
      findBestSplit in class CART
      Parameters:
      leaf - the node to split.
      j - the column to split on.
      impurity - the impurity of node.
      lo - the lower bound of sample index in the node.
      hi - the upper bound of sample index in the node.
      Returns:
      the best split.

    • fit

      public static RegressionTree fit(Formula formula, DataFrame data)
      Fits a regression tree.
      Parameters:
      formula - a symbolic description of the model to be fitted.
      data - the data frame of the explanatory and response variables.
      Returns:
      the model.

    • fit

      public static RegressionTree fit(Formula formula, DataFrame data, RegressionTree.Options options)
      Fits a regression tree.
      Parameters:
      formula - a symbolic description of the model to be fitted.
      data - the data frame of the explanatory and response variables.
      options - the hyperparameters.
      Returns:
      the model.

    • predict

      public double predict(Tuple x)
      Description copied from interface: Regression
      Predicts the dependent variable of an instance.
      Specified by:
      predict in interface Regression<Tuple>
      Parameters:
      x - an instance.
      Returns:
      the predicted value of dependent variable.

    • formula

      public Formula formula()
      Returns null if the tree is part of ensemble algorithm.
      Specified by:
      formula in interface DataFrameRegression
      Returns:
      the model formula.

    • schema

      public StructType schema()
      Description copied from interface: DataFrameRegression
      Returns the schema of predictors.
      Specified by:
      schema in interface DataFrameRegression
      Returns:
      the schema of predictors.