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Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in Europe

AIME 1997: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine pp 143–156Cite as

A theoretical framework for decision trees in uncertain domains: Application to medical data sets

  • Decision-Support Theories
  • Conference paper
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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1211))

Abstract

Experimental evidence shows that many attribute selection criteria involved in the induction of decision trees perform comparably. We set up a theoretical framework that explains this empirical law. It furthermore provides an infinite set of criteria (the C.M. criteria) which contains the most commonly used criteria. We also define C.M. pruning which is suitable in uncertain domains. In such domains, like medicine, some sub-trees which don't lessen the error rate can be relevant to point out some populations of specific interest or to give a representation of a large data file. C.M. pruning allows to keep such sub-trees, even when keeping the sub-trees doesn't increase the classification efficiency. Thus we obtain a consistent framework for both building and pruning decision trees in uncertain domains. We give typical examples in medicine, highlighting routine use of induction in this domain even if the targeted diagnosis cannot be reached for many cases from the findings under investigation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GREYC, CNRS - UPRESA 1526, Université de Caen, Esplanade de la Paix, F-14032, Caen Cédex, France

    B. Crémilleux

  2. Institut de Recherche en Mathématiques Appliquées, Université Joseph Fourier, BP 53 X, F-38041, Grenoble Cédex, France

    C. Robert

Authors
  1. B. Crémilleux
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  2. C. Robert
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Editor information

Elpida Keravnou Catherine Garbay Robert Baud Jeremy Wyatt

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Crémilleux, B., Robert, C. (1997). A theoretical framework for decision trees in uncertain domains: Application to medical data sets. In: Keravnou, E., Garbay, C., Baud, R., Wyatt, J. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. AIME 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1211. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0029447

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0029447

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-62709-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68448-0

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