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Research background: Financial distress or non-prosperity prediction has been a widely discussed topic for several decades. Early detection of impending financial problems of the company is crucial for effective risk management and important for all entities involved in the company's business activities. In this way, it is possible to take the actions in the management of the company and eliminate possible undesirable consequences of these problems. Purpose of the article: This article aims to innovate financial distress prediction through the creation of individual models and ensembles, combining machine learning techniques such as decision trees and neural networks. These models are developed using real data. Beyond serving as an autonomous and universal tool especially useful in the Slovak economic conditions, these models can also represent a benchmark for Central European economies confronting similar economic dynamics. Methods: The prediction models are created using a dataset consisting of more than 20 financial ratios of more than 19 thousand real companies. Partial models are created employing machine learning algorithms, namely decision trees and neural networks. Finally, all models are compared based on a wide range of selected performance metrics. During this process, we strictly use a data mining methodology CRISP-DM. Findings & value added: The research contributes to the evolution of financial prediction and reveals the effectiveness of ensemble modelling in predicting financial distress, achieving an overall predictive ability of nearly 90 percent. Beyond its Slovak origins, this study provides a framework for early financial distress prediction. Although the models are created for diverse industries within the Slovak economy, they could also be useful beyond national borders. Moreover, the CRISP-DM methodological framework enables its adaptability for companies in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failure in compulsory subjects such as chemistry, calculus, physics, and basic control systems could hamper the graduation process of students. Thus, students must be successful in such obligatory courses. To address this issue, this study aims to predict student performance based on their learning outcomes using data mining techniques. In particular, we utilize decision tree (DT), k-nearest neighbor (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), and naive Bayes (NB) algorithms to predict student performance. The data for this study were gathered from the learning outcomes of students in the basic control systems course and subsequently modeled using binary and nine-level classifications. The experimental results showed that DT could perform better than KNN, SVM, and NB in the binary and nine-level classifications. Interestingly, the results of DT (i.e., the prediction values) are almost similar to those of the original values of the basic control systems course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovering causal relationships in data is a major objective of data analytics. Currently, there is a need for scalable and automated methods for causal relationship exploration in data. Classification methods are fast and they could be practical substitutes for finding causal signals in data. However, classification methods are not designed for causal discovery and a classification method may find false causal signals and miss the true ones. In this paper, we develop a causal decision tree (CDT) where nodes have causal interpretations. Our method follows a well-established causal inference framework and makes use of a classic statistical test to establish the causal relationship between a predictor variable and the outcome variable. At the same time, by taking the advantages of normal decision trees, a CDT provides a compact graphical representation of the causal relationships, and the construction of a CDT is fast as a result of the divide and conquer strategy employed, making CDTs practical for representing and finding causal signals in large data sets. Experiment results demonstrate that CDTs can identify meaningful causal relationships and the CDT algorithm is scalable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Because clinical research is carried out in complex environments, prior domain knowledge, constraints, and expert knowledge can enhance the capabilities and performance of data mining. In this paper we propose an unexpected pattern mining model that uses decision trees to compare recovery rates of two different treatments, and to find patterns that contrast with the prior knowledge of domain users. In the proposed model we define interestingness measures to determine whether the patterns found are interesting to the domain. By applying the concept of domain-driven data mining, we repeatedly utilize decision trees and interestingness measures in a closed-loop, in-depth mining process to find unexpected and interesting patterns. We use retrospective data from transvaginal ultrasound-guided aspirations to show that the proposed model can successfully compare different treatments using a decision tree, which is a new usage of that tool. We believe that unexpected, interesting patterns may provide clinical researchers with different perspectives for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the non-linear but highly interpretable representations, decision tree (DT) models have significantly attracted a lot of attention of researchers. However, it is difficult to understand and interpret DT models in ultrahigh dimensions and DT models usually suffer from the curse of dimensionality and achieve degenerated performance when there are many noisy features. To address these issues, this paper first presents a novel data-dependent generalization error bound for the perceptron decision tree (PDT), which provides the theoretical justification to learn a sparse linear hyperplane in each decision node and to prune the tree. Following our analysis, we introduce the notion of budget-aware classifier (BAC) with a budget constraint on the weight coefficients, and propose a supervised budgeted tree (SBT) algorithm to achieve non-linear prediction performance. To avoid generating an unstable and complicated decision tree and improve the generalization of the SBT, we present a pruning strategy by learning classifiers to minimize cross-validation errors on each BAC. To deal with ultrahigh label dimensions, based on three important phenomena of real-world data sets from a variety of application domains, we develop a sparse coding tree framework for multi-label annotation problems and provide the theoretical analysis. Extensive empirical studies verify that 1) SBT is easy to understand and interpret in ultrahigh dimensions and is more resilient to noisy features. 2) Compared with state-of-the-art algorithms, our proposed sparse coding tree framework is more efficient, yet accurate in ultrahigh label and feature dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though it is well known that for most relevant computational problems, different algorithms may perform better on different classes of problem instances, most researchers still focus on determining a single best algorithmic configuration based on aggregate results such as the average. In this paper, we propose integer programming‐based approaches to build decision trees for the algorithm selection problem. These techniques allow the automation of three crucial decisions: (a) discerning the most important problem features to determine problem classes, (b) grouping the problems into classes, and (c) selecting the best algorithm configuration for each class. To evaluate this new approach, extensive computational experiments were executed using the linear programming algorithms implemented in the COIN‐OR branch‐and‐cut solver across a comprehensive set of instances, including all MIPLIB benchmark instances. The results exceeded our expectations. While selecting the single best parameter setting across all instances decreased the total running time by 22%, our approach decreased the total running time by 40% on average across 10‐fold cross‐validation experiments. These results indicate that our method generalizes quite well and does not overfit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper address the data mining task of classifying data stream with concept drift. The proposed algorithm, named Concept-adapting Evolutionary Algorithm For Decision Tree (CEVOT) does not require any knowledge of the environment in which it operates (e.g. numbers and rates of drifts). The novelty of the approach is combining tree learner and evolutionary algorithm, where the decision tree is learned incrementally and all information (knowledge) are stored in the internal structure of the trees’ population. The proposed algorithm is experimentally compared with state-of-the-art stream methods on several real live and synthetic datasets. Results proves its high performance in term of accuracy and processing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports effect evaluation is the main module of modern information construction. To improve the accuracy of sports effect evaluation and enhance the training level of athletes, this paper aims to conduct in-depth research on sports effect evaluation based on feature selection under the background of big data. Firstly, a sports evaluation system is designed based on the Window Presentation Foundation (WPF) that adopts a Client–Server (C/S) mode. The overall architecture of the system is proposed by expounding the functional modules and the schema of information tables in the database. To assess the impact of sports, the data mining algorithm and big data analytics technique called Random Forest (RF) is used as the core evaluation system. With the help of information gain, feature selection is performed, based on which decision trees are constructed by generating branch nodes. The random forest is created by combining all the decision trees, which helps in improving the generalization. The proposed method is experimentally verified and it is found that the overall stability of the effect evaluation system is good and it effectively improves the efficiency and accuracy of sports effect evaluation, thus enhancing the level of athletes' training. The proposed sports effect evaluation method performs excellently in the experimental validation, as seen by the remarkable F1 Score of 85.32%, average accuracy of 84.28%, precision of 86%, and recall of 82.28%. In comparison, this performs noticeably better than current approaches, proving its improved efficacy in assessing the effects of sports and confirming its ability to improve athlete training proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the area of Author Profiling (AP) and its importance in several industries, including forensics, security, marketing, and education. A key component of AP is the extraction of useful information from text, with an emphasis on the writers' ages and genders. To improve the accuracy of AP tasks, the study develops an ensemble model dubbed ABMRF that combines AdaBoostM1 (ABM1) and Random Forest (RF). The work uses an extensive technique that involves textmessage dataset pretreatment, model training, and assessment. To evaluate the effectiveness of several machine learning (ML) algorithms in classifying age and gender, including Composite Hypercube on Random Projection (CHIRP), Decision Trees (J48), Naïve Bayes (NB), K Nearest Neighbor, AdaboostM1, NB-Updatable, RF, andABMRF, they are compared. The findings demonstrate thatABMRFregularly beats the competition, with a gender classification accuracy of 71.14% and an age classification accuracy of 54.29%, respectively. Additional metrics like precision, recall, F-measure, Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC), and accuracy support ABMRF's outstanding performance in age and gender profiling tasks. This study demonstrates the usefulness of ABMRF as an ensemble model for author profiling and highlights its possible uses in marketing, law enforcement, and education. The results emphasize the effectiveness of ensemble approaches in enhancing author profiling task accuracy, particularly when it comes to age and gender identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data sharing and publication have been popular in recent years due to the abundance of options. Evaluating and extracting data from sizable valuable databases i.e., data mining has various challenges which include issues with security, privacy, and data integrity. Anonymized data is used in the majority of privacy preserving data publication approaches, depending on a few utilitarian measures. However, applications that have particular needs for the data they utilize might not be able to use the anonymized data. Practical data anonymization must work to accomplish two opposing objectives: to maintain the data's usefulness and to satisfy a specific privacy need. The utility loss when data is anonymized is frequently measured using generic utility metrics, such as the specific values generalized in a specific ontology. As a need for an application, we suggest equivalent specification, a technique that enables a data user to characterize some properties of the anonymized data. We also introduce the "split-and-mould" algorithm, a heuristic anonymization algorithm that applies a generalization method to the user-provided parameters. Our preliminary results indicate that the specification format and procedure can improve significantly the utility of the anonymized data for data mining that develop predictive models, like decision trees (DTs) and Naïve Bayes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The news industry faces challenges due to the global macro and microeconomic environment. The current digital situation leads to the study of the characteristics of the audience interested in news content products. The central aim of this research is to classify the main attribute interest in digital news content in Mexico of the audience’s market by the attributes of age group, education level, and income level. This research is based on a survey of 2,005 digital news consumers in Mexico, directed in 2022 by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford for the annual Digital News Report Study. The statistical method used is data mining with decision trees that classify the audience by the attribute of interest in the news as the dependent variable and attributes of age groups, education level, and income level as independent variables. These findings confirm the segmentation of digital news consumers’ audiences. The classification in which the attributes of age groups, level of education, and income level are considered simultaneously concerning audiences’ interests indicates that some of the predictions made show that some attributes may not be significant in some subsets, except for age group. The lowest average interest in the news is between 18 and 24 years, and the highest average interest in the news, which is nearly very interested, has audiences over 35 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Project scheduling plays an essential role in the implementation of a project due to the limitation of resources in practical projects. However, the existing research tend to focus on finding suitable algorithms to solve various scheduling problems and fail to find the potential scheduling rules in these optimal or near-optimal solutions, that is, the possible intrinsic relationships between attributes related to the scheduling of activity sequences. Data mining (DM) is used to analyze and interpret data to obtain valuable information stored in large-scale data. The goal of this paper is to use DM to discover scheduling concepts and obtain a set of rules that approximate effective solutions to resource-constrained project scheduling problems. These rules do not require any search and simulation, which have extremely low time complexity and support real-time decision-making to improve planning/scheduling. Design/methodology/approach: The resource-constrained project scheduling problem can be described as scheduling a group of interrelated activities to optimize the project completion time and other objectives while satisfying the activity priority relationship and resource constraints. This paper proposes a new approach to solve the resource-constrained project scheduling problem by combining DM technology and the genetic algorithm (GA). More specifically, the GA is used to generate various optimal project scheduling schemes, after that C4.5 decision tree (DT) is adopted to obtain valuable knowledge from these schemes for further predicting and solving new scheduling problems. Findings: In this study, the authors use GA and DM technology to analyze and extract knowledge from a large number of scheduling schemes, and determine the scheduling rule set to minimize the completion time. In order to verify the application effect of the proposed DT classification model, the J30, J60 and J120 datasets in PSPLIB are used to test the validity of the scheduling rules. The results show that DT can readily duplicate the excellent performance of GA for scheduling problems of different scales. In addition, the DT prediction model developed in this study is applied to a high-rise residential project consisting of 117 activities. The results show that compared with the completion time obtained by GA, the DT model can realize rapid adjustment of project scheduling problem to deal with the dynamic environment interference. In a word, the data-based approach is feasible, practical and effective. It not only captures the knowledge contained in the known optimal scheduling schemes, but also helps to provide a flexible scheduling decision-making approach for project implementation. Originality/value: This paper proposes a novel knowledge-based project scheduling approach. In previous studies, intelligent optimization algorithm is often used to solve the project scheduling problem. However, although these intelligent optimization algorithms can generate a set of effective solutions for problem instances, they are unable to explain the process of decision-making, nor can they identify the characteristics of good scheduling decisions generated by the optimization process. Moreover, their calculation is slow and complex, which is not suitable for planning and scheduling complex projects. In this study, the set of effective solutions of problem instances is taken as the training dataset of DM algorithm, and the extracted scheduling rules can provide the prediction and solution of new scheduling problems. The proposed method focuses on identifying the key parameters of a specific dynamic scheduling environment, which can not only reproduces the scheduling performance of the original algorithm well, but also has the ability to make decisions quickly under the dynamic interference construction scenario. It is helpful for project managers to implement quick decisions in response to construction emergencies, which is of great practical significance for improving the flexibility and efficiency of construction projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study utilized data mining and machine learning (ML) techniques to identify new patterns and classifications of the associations between nutrient intake and anemia among university students. Methods: We employed K-means clustering analysis algorithm and Decision Tree (DT) technique to identify the association between anemia and vitamin and mineral intakes. We normalized and balanced the data based on anemia weighted clusters for improving ML models' accuracy. In addition, t-tests and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were performed to identify significant differences between the clusters. We evaluated the models on a balanced dataset of 755 female participants from the Hebron district in Palestine. Results: Our study found that 34.8% of the participants were anemic. The intake of various micronutrients (i.e., folate, Vit A, B5, B6, B12, C, E, Ca, Fe, and Mg) was below RDA/AI values, which indicated an overall unbalanced malnutrition in the present cohort. Anemia was significantly associated with intakes of energy, protein, fat, Vit B1, B5, B6, C, Mg, Cu and Zn. On the other hand, intakes of protein, Vit B2, B5, B6, C, E, choline, folate, phosphorus, Mn and Zn were significantly lower in anemic than in non-anemic subjects. DT classification models for vitamins and minerals (accuracy rate: 82.1%) identified an inverse association between intakes of Vit B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, E, folate, Zn, Mg, Fe and Mn and prevalence of anemia. Conclusions: Besides the nutrients commonly known to be linked to anemia—like folate, Vit B6, C, B12, or Fe—the cluster analyses in the present cohort of young female university students have also found choline, Vit E, B2, Zn, Mg, Mn, and phosphorus as additional nutrients that might relate to the development of anemia. Further research is needed to elucidate if the intake of these nutrients might influence the risk of anemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past few years have seen an emergence of interest in examining the significance of machine learning (ML) in the medical field. Diseases, health emergencies, and medical disorders may now be identified with greater accuracy because of technological advancements and advances in ML. It is essential especially to diagnose individuals with chronic diseases (CD) as early as possible. Our study has focused on analyzing ML's applicability to predict CD, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, liver, and neurological disorders. This study offered a high-level summary of the previous research on ML-based approaches for predicting CD and some instances of their applications. To wrap things up, we compared the results obtained by various studies and the methodologies as well as tools employed by the researchers. The factors or parameters that are responsible for improving the accuracy of the predicting model for different previous works are also identified. For identifying significant features, most of the authors employed a variety of strategies, where least absolute shrinkage and selection (LASSO), minimal-redundancy-maximum-relevance (mRMR), and RELIEF are extensively used methods. It is seen that a wide range of ML approaches, including support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), decision tree (DT), naïve Bayes (NB), etc., have been widely used. Also, several deep learning techniques and hybrid models are employed to create CD prediction models, resulting in efficient and reliable clinical decision-making models. For the benefit of the whole healthcare system, we have also offered our suggestions for enhancing the prediction results of CD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches were applied to determine routes to high CO selectivity during the electroreduction of CO2 in deep eutectic solvents (DES) utilizing the molecular, chemical, and physical characteristics of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors, as well as the properties of different electrodes and DES solvents. In addition, effective data visualization and machine learning techniques were employed to identify relationships between descriptor variables and CO faradaic efficiency. First, SHAP (Shapley Additive exPlanations) analysis was applied to determine the positive and negative effects of the descriptor variables on the target, and it was found that urea in HBD (hydrogen bond donor) has the greatest impact on the target. Then, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify the combinations that lead to low, medium, and high levels of the target. PCA indicated that high-level clusters may be linked with HBA (hydrogen bond acceptor) molecular properties rather than HBD in addition to choline chloride-type HBA, HBA/HBD ratio, HBD density, HBD melting point, and urea-type HBD. Finally, decision tree classification was used to discover the variables leading to very high levels of the target. The decision tree revealed one pathway with very high CO faradaic efficiency and two pathways with high CO faradaic efficiency. To conclude, future researchers will be able to design new experiments with less effort and time while analyzing the effect of new DES components for high-performance CO2 electrolyzers as a result of the machine learning study and exploratory data analysis performed in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Death due to covid‐19 is one of the biggest health challenges in the world. There are many models that can predict death due to COVID‐19. This study aimed to fit and compare Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and AdaBoost models to predict death due to COVID‐19. Methods: To describe the variables, mean (SD) and frequency (%) were reported. To determine the relationship between the variables and the death caused by COVID‐19, chi‐square test was performed with a significance level of 0.05. To compare DT, SVM and AdaBoost models for predicting death due to COVID‐19 from sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and the area under the rock curve under R software using psych, caTools, random over‐sampling examples, rpart, rpartplot packages was done. Results: Out of the total of 23,054 patients studied, 10,935 cases (46.5%) were women, and 12,569 cases (53.5%) were men. Additionally, the mean age of the patients was 54.9 ± 21.0 years. There is a statistically significant relationship between gender, fever, cough, muscle pain, smell and taste, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia, dizziness, chest pain, intubation, cancer, diabetes, chronic blood disease, Violation of immunity, pregnancy, Dialysis, chronic lung disease with the death of covid‐19 patients showed (p < 0.05). The results showed that the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve were respectively 0.60, 0.68, 0.71, and 0.75 in the DT model, 0.54, 0.62, 0.63, and 0.71 in the SVM model, and 0.59, 0.65, 0.69 and 0.74 in the AdaBoost model. Conclusion: The results showed that DT had a high predictive power compared to other data mining models. Therefore, it is suggested to researchers in different fields to use DT to predict the studied variables. Also, it is suggested to use other approaches such as random forest or XGBoost to improve the accuracy in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the popularization of higher education, the number of students in colleges and universities is increasing, and how to timely cope with the various problems faced by students in employment has become a major problem faced by teachers in colleges and universities. Due to the low utilization rate of student information by the traditional employment management of college graduates, the quality of employment guidance services is not high. Therefore, to solve this problem, this study proposes a simplified, improved Iterative Dichotomizer 3 (ID3) based on the correlation coefficient, and the algorithm improves the information gain function and simplifies the information entropy formula. The experimental results show that the simplified modified ID3 based on correlation coefficients converges faster than the other two algorithms, starting to converge after only 17 iterations; the loss value is also smaller than the other algorithms, at around 0.12. Its minimum accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-measure for employment status prediction were 86.4, 76.8, 72.8, and 0.82%, respectively, all higher than the rest of the algorithms. The time complexity at a sample size of 80 is only 32 ms, which is lower than the rest of the algorithms. It can be seen that the simplified and improved ID3 based on correlation coefficients can accurately and efficiently perform predictive analysis of graduates’ employment status. The university employment management system proposed in the study has achieved efficient deep utilization of graduate information through ID3, providing assistance to university employment decision-makers and reference for employment guidance for university graduates.

The goal of this paper is to improve the predictive accuracy of data streaming algorithms without increasing the processing time of the incoming data. We propose the EnHAT (Ensemble Combined with Hoeffding Adaptive Tree) algorithm, which combines the state-of-the-art Hoeffding Adaptive Tree (HAT) algorithm with an ensemble of J48 decision trees induced from sequential chunks of the data stream. The slack time of HAT adaptation to a new window of incoming records is utilized in parallel for building a decision-tree ensemble. In our experiments on 4 benchmark streaming datasets and 4 synthetic datasets with different types of concept drift, EnHAT has reached the highest predictive accuracy in 23 out of 26 cases compared to an ensemble of J48 trees, HAT, and a single J48 model induced from the last sliding window. Thus, we can conclude that the ensemble/HAT synergy yields better prediction results than each one of the two approaches on its own. The higher accuracy does not come at the expense of any additional computational effort beyond the model induction times of the combined algorithms. • We build interpretable and accurate classification models from massive data streams. • The Hoeffding Adaptive Tree is combined with an ensemble of J48 decision trees. • The synergy between the two algorithms improves classification accuracy. • The proposed algorithm does not increase the model induction time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characterizing error structures in precipitation products not only facilitates their proper applications for scientific and practical purposes but also helps improve their retrieval algorithms and processing methods. Despite the fact that multiple precipitation products have been assessed in the literature, factors that affect their error structures remain inadequately addressed. By interpreting 60 binary decision trees, this study disentangles the error characteristics of precipitation products in terms of their spatiotemporal patterns and geographical factors. Three independent precipitation products - two satellite-based and one reanalysis datasets: the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) late run (IMERG-L), Soil Moisture to Rain-Advanced SCATterometer (SM2RAIN-ASCAT), and the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 uncorrected precipitation output (MERRA2-UC), are evaluated across the contiguous United States from 2010 to 2019. The ground-based Stage IV precipitation dataset is used as the ground truth. Results indicate that the MERRA2-UC outperforms the IMERG-L and SM2RAIN-ASCAT with higher accuracy and more stable interannual patterns for the analysis period. Decision trees cross-assess three spatiotemporal factors and find that the underestimation of MERRA2-UC occurs in the east of the Rocky Mountains, and SM2RAIN-ASCAT underestimates precipitation over high latitudes, especially in winter. Additionally, the decision tree method ascribes system errors to nine different geographical characteristics, of which the distance to the coast, soil type, and DEM are the three dominant features. On the other hand, the land cover type, topography position index, and aspect are three relatively weak factors. • A decision tree (DT) method is proposed to evaluate precipitation product. • The DT method can disentangle multiple factors simultaneously. • 60 DTs are interpreted to disentangle errors in three precipitation products. • The distance to the coast, soil type, and DEM are highly related to product errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a hybrid approach for the Feature Based Parameter Tuning Problem (FBPTP) of Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) solvers. These solvers are complex programs composed of many procedures whose execution is embedded in the Branch-and-Bound framework and their execution can be configured by setting different parameters. The diversity of models that can be formulated as MIP problems can be exploited to devise better parameter settings for groups of problems, considering lessons learned from previous experiments. Decision trees can be used to define the best parameter settings for different problem types. However the construction of optimal decision trees is a NP-Hard problem. Thus, we propose an Integer Programming Model to construct optimal decision trees for FBPTP. A Variable Neighborhood Search heuristic is employed to accelerate the production of high quality solutions. Encouraging computational results were obtained for the open source MIP solver COIN-OR CBC: executions in the test sets considering decisions based on our decision trees built using training sets prove the effectiveness of the proposed method compared to default settings, an improvement of 7% in solver's performance was obtained both in execution times as well in the number of solved instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we deal with distributed data represented either as a finite set T of decision tables with equal sets of attributes or a finite set I of information systems with equal sets of attributes. In the former case, we discuss a way to the study decision trees common to all tables from the set T : building a decision table in which the set of decision trees coincides with the set of decision trees common to all tables from T. We show when we can build such a decision table and how to build it in a polynomial time. If we have such a table, we can apply various decision tree learning algorithms to it. We extend the considered approach to the study of test (reducts) and decision rules common to all tables from T. In the latter case, we discuss a way to study the association rules common to all information systems from the set I : building a joint information system for which the set of true association rules that are realizable for a given row ρ and have a given attribute a on the right-hand side coincides with the set of association rules that are true for all information systems from I , have the attribute a on the right-hand side, and are realizable for the row ρ. We then show how to build a joint information system in a polynomial time. When we build such an information system, we can apply various association rule learning algorithms to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data mining plays an important role in analyzing the massive amount of data collected in today’s world. However, due to the public’s rising awareness of privacy and lack of trust in organizations, suitable Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) techniques have become vital. A PPDM technique provides individual privacy while allowing useful data mining. We present a novel noise addition technique called Forest Framework, two novel data quality evaluation techniques called EDUDS and EDUSC, and a security evaluation technique called SERS. Forest Framework builds a decision forest from a dataset and preserves all the patterns (logic rules) of the forest while adding noise to the dataset. We compare Forest Framework to its predecessor, Framework, and another established technique, GADP. Our comparison is done using our three evaluation criteria, as well as Prediction Accuracy. Our experimental results demonstrate the success of our proposed extensions to Framework and the usefulness of our evaluation criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leptospirosis is a global disease that impacts people worldwide, particularly in humid and tropical regions, and is associated with significant socio-economic deficiencies. Its symptoms are often confused with other syndromes, which can compromise clinical diagnosis and the failure to carry out specific laboratory tests. In this respect, this paper presents a study of three algorithms (Decision Tree, Random Forest and Adaboost) for predicting the outcome (cure or death) of individuals with leptospirosis. Using the records contained in the government National System of Aggressions and Notification (SINAN, in portuguese) from 2007 to 2017, for the state of Pará, Brazil, where the temporal attributes of health care, symptoms (headache, vomiting, jaundice, calf pain) and clinical evolution (renal failure and respiratory changes) were used. In the performance evaluation of the selected models, it was observed that the Random Forest exhibited an accuracy of 90.81% for the training dataset, considering the attributes of experiment 8, and the Decision Tree presented an accuracy of 74.29 for the validation database. So, this result considers the best attributes pointed out by experiment 10: time first symptoms medical attention, time first symptoms ELISA sample collection, medical attention hospital admission time, headache, calf pain, vomiting, jaundice, renal insufficiency, and respiratory alterations. The contribution of this article is the confirmation that artificial intelligence, using the Decision Tree model algorithm, depicting the best choice as the final model to be used in future data for the prediction of human leptospirosis cases, helping in the diagnosis and course of the disease, aiming to avoid the evolution to death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital educational resources (DER) provide valuable supplement to classic textbooks by offering interactivity, multimodality, and flexibility of use, which support students' engagement. These characteristics along with several pedagogical requirements that scaffold students' learning formed the basis for the development of DER within the e-School project, which was carried out in Croatia from 2015 till 2023. The goal was to develop high-quality DER that enables students' meaningful learning and encourages educators to integrate them into their teaching. This study aims to investigate students' and teachers' perceptions of e-School DER and their intention to reuse them by applying data mining techniques, which presents a novelty approach in this domain. A total of 11 827 students and 1 653 teachers answered the survey about the quality of various DER implemented in the web repository. By applying a decision tree machine learning algorithm, a predictive model of students' and teachers' intention to reuse DER is developed. Sensitivity analysis of the predictive model extracted relevant variables for prediction. The findings reveal that students and teachers have different perspectives on the quality of digital educational resources which facilitate different criteria when it comes to intention to reuse DER in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous improvement of the steelmaking process is a critical issue for steelmakers. In the production of Ca-treated Al-killed steel, the Ca and S contents are controlled for successful inclusion modification treatment. In this study, a machine learning technique was used to build a decision tree classifier and thus identify the process variables that most influence the desired Ca and S contents at the end of ladle furnace refining. The attribute of the root node of the decision tree was correlated with process variables via the Pearson formalism. Thus, the attribute of the root node corresponded to the sulfur distribution coefficient at the end of the refining process, and its value allowed for the discrimination of satisfactory heats from unsatisfactory heats. The variables with higher correlation with the sulfur distribution coefficient were the content of sulfur in both steel and slag at the end of the refining process, as well as the Si content at that stage of the process. As secondary variables, the Si content and the basicity of the slag at the end of the refining process were correlated with the S content in the steel and slag, respectively, at that stage. The analysis showed that the conditions of steel and slag at the beginning of the refining process and the efficient S removal during the refining process are crucial for reaching desired Ca and S contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of categorizing students' performance based on input data, encompassing demographic information and final exam results, is recognized as student performance classification. Educational data mining has gained traction in assessing students' performance. However, this study entails the need to analyze the diverse attributes of students' information within an educational institution by using data mining techniques. This study thoroughly examines both previous and current methodologies presented by researchers, addressing two main aspects: data preprocessing and classification algorithms applied in student performance classification. Data preprocessing specifically delves into the exploration of feature selection techniques, encompassing three types of feature selection and search methods. These techniques aim to identify the most significant features, eliminate unnecessary ones, and reduce data dimensionality. In addition, classification algorithms play a crucial role in categorizing or predicting student performance. Models such as k-nearest neighbors (KNN), decision tree (DT), artificial neural networks (ANN), and linear models (LR) were scrutinized based on their performance in prior research. Ultimately, this study highlights the potential for further exploration of feature selection techniques like information gain, Chi-square, and sequential selection, particularly when applied to new datasets such as students' online learning activities, utilizing a variety of classification algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, explainability in machine and deep learning has become an important area in the field of research as well as interest, both due to the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) methods and understanding of the decisions made by models. The explainability of artificial intelligence (XAI) is due to the increasing consciousness in, among other things, data mining, error elimination, and learning performance by various AI algorithms. Moreover, XAI will allow the decisions made by models in problems to be more transparent as well as effective. In this study, models from the 'glass box' group of Decision Tree, among others, and the 'black box' group of Random Forest, among others, were proposed to understand the identification of selected types of currant powders. The learning process of these models was carried out to determine accuracy indicators such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. It was visualized using Local Interpretable Model Agnostic Explanations (LIMEs) to predict the effectiveness of identifying specific types of blackcurrant powders based on texture descriptors such as entropy, contrast, correlation, dissimilarity, and homogeneity. Bagging (Bagging_100), Decision Tree (DT0), and Random Forest (RF7_gini) proved to be the most effective models in the framework of currant powder interpretability. The measures of classifier performance in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score for Bagging_100, respectively, reached values of approximately 0.979. In comparison, DT0 reached values of 0.968, 0.972, 0.968, and 0.969, and RF7_gini reached values of 0.963, 0.964, 0.963, and 0.963. These models achieved classifier performance measures of greater than 96%. In the future, XAI using agnostic models can be an additional important tool to help analyze data, including food products, even online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College context and academic performance are important determinants of academic success; using students' prior experience with machine learning techniques to predict academic success before the end of the first year reinforces college self-efficacy. Dropout prediction is related to student retention and has been studied extensively in recent work; however, there is little literature on predicting academic success using educational machine learning. For this reason, CRISP-DM methodology was applied to extract relevant knowledge and features from the data. The dataset examined consists of 6690 records and 21 variables with academic and socioeconomic information. Preprocessing techniques and classification algorithms were analyzed. The area under the curve was used to measure the effectiveness of the algorithm; XGBoost had an AUC = 87.75% and correctly classified eight out of ten cases, while the decision tree improved interpretation with ten rules in seven out of ten cases. Recognizing the gaps in the study and that on-time completion of college consolidates college self-efficacy, creating intervention and support strategies to retain students is a priority for decision makers. Assessing the fairness and discrimination of the algorithms was the main limitation of this work. In the future, we intend to apply the extracted knowledge and learn about its influence of on university management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A promising approach for an effective shop scheduling that synergizes the benefits of the combinatorial optimization, supervised learning and discrete-event simulation is presented. Though dispatching rules are in widely used by shop scheduling practitioners, only ordinary performance rules are known; hence, dynamic generation of dispatching rules is desired to make them more effective in changing shop conditions. Meta-heuristics are able to perform quite well and carry more knowledge of the problem domain, however at the cost of prohibitive computational effort in real-time. The primary purpose of this research lies in an offline extraction of this domain knowledge using decision trees to generate simple if-then rules that subsequently act as dispatching rules for scheduling in an online manner. We used similarity index to identify parametric and structural similarity in problem instances in order to implicitly support the learning algorithm for effective rule generation and quality index for relative ranking of the dispatching decisions. Maximum lateness is used as the scheduling objective in a job shop scheduling environment.

Class imbalance treatment methods and cost-sensitive classification algorithms are typically treated as two independent research areas. However, many of these techniques have properties in common. After providing a background to the two fields of research, this article identifies the fundamental mechanismwhich is common to both. Using this mechanism, a taxonomy is created which encompasses approaches to both class imbalance treatment and cost-sensitive classification. Through this survey, we aim to bridge the gap between the two fields such that lessons from one field may be applied to the other. Many data mining tasks are naturally both class imbalanced and cost-sensitive. This survey is useful for researchers and practitioners approaching these tasks as it provides a detailed overview of approaches in both fields. Many of the surveyed techniques are classifier independent. However, we chose to focus on techniques which were either decision tree-based or compatible with decision trees. This choice was based on the popularity and novelty of their application to both fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is considered as an effective treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukemia. However, complications of transplantation, like aGVHD, affect the efficiency of allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The present study aimed to implement different models of data mining (DM) (single and ensemble) for prediction of allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (transplantation against host disease). Method: We conducted this developmental study on 94 patients with 34 attributes in Taleghani Hospital, Tehran, Iran, during 2009--2017. In this practical study, data were analyzed via decision tree (DT) algorithms, including decision tree, random forest and gradient boosting (ensemble learning), artificial neural network (Single Learning), and support vector machine. Some criteria, like specificity, accuracy, Fmeasure, AUC (area under curve), and sensitivity, were reported in order to evaluate DT algorithms. Results: There were 34 transplantation-related variables; some predictors, such as liver, hemoglobin, and donor blood group, were found to be the most important ones. To predict aGVHD, the two selected algorithms included the most appropriate DM models, artificial neural network and support vector machine classifiers, with ROC of 100. Conclusion: This study indicated that DT algorithms could be successfully used for approving the efficiency of the models predicting allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Decision trees have been widely used in data mining and machine learning as a comprehensible knowledge representation. While ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms have been successfully applied to extract classification rules, decision tree induction with ACO algorithms remains an almost unexplored research area. In this paper we propose a novel ACO algorithm to induce decision trees, combining commonly used strategies from both traditional decision tree induction algorithms and ACO. The proposed algorithm is compared against three decision tree induction algorithms, namely C4.5, CART and cACDT, in 22 publicly available data sets. The results show that the predictive accuracy of the proposed algorithm is statistically significantly higher than the accuracy of both C4.5 and CART, which are well-known conventional algorithms for decision tree induction, and the accuracy of the ACO-based cACDT decision tree algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights • A novel piloting decision recognition model for fuzziness and uncertainty problems. • Automatic acquisition and representation of the pilot's decision-making knowledge. • A flexible method that can mine the key factors which affect piloting decisions. • The standardization principle of piloting decision-making factors is proposed. • A feasibility basis for the realization of automatic smart ship piloting systems. Abstract With the further development of marine and information technologies, ship intelligence, green policies and automation will become mainstream with global cargo ships. Ship labor costs increase every year, so for the foreseeable future, the number of experienced crew members will be greatly reduced as smart ship emergence accelerates. At present, there is no mature research system for the human-like piloting of smart ships. In this paper, we use an improved decision tree, which could address problems of fuzziness and uncertainty. This will allow us to study the decision mechanisms of different piloting behaviors in order to realize the automatic acquisition and representation of the pilot's decision-making knowledge in inbound ship analysis as well as the simulated reproduction of the pilot's behavior. The simulation results show that the piloting decision recognition model, based on the fuzzy Iterative Dichotomiser 3 (ID3) decision tree, possesses a high reasoning speed and can accurately identify current piloting behavior. This provides theoretical guidance and a feasibility basis for research into human-like piloting behavior and the realization of automatic smart ship piloting systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comprehensive exploration of the development of an AI-driven Gen-Alpha education guidance indicator for Oman, employing cutting-edge machine learning techniques. The primary objective is to deliver a highly personalized support system and guidance mechanism that accompanies students throughout their academic journey. The research places a spotlight on the pivotal role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the realm of education. It skillfully demonstrates AI's robust capabilities in accurately forecasting student performance through the effective use of data mining and advanced machine learning techniques. An integral aspect of this research is the application of AI in aiding students to navigate the involved process of subject selection for their higher education pursuits. This multidimensional process encompasses exhaustive data collection, the detailed creation of a sophisticated machine learning model, and the application of a diverse array of state-of-the-art algorithms. Among these algorithms, K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Decision Trees, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machines (SVM) stand out prominently. Notably, the SVM algorithm emerges as the outright winner, delivering an extraordinary accuracy rate of 77%. This remarkable achievement underscores the model's unwavering robustness and its potential to redefine the educational landscape in Oman. In essence, this paper transcends the boundaries of conventional research and offers conclusive validation of AI's revolutionary potential in reshaping educational paradigms. By facilitating data-driven decision-making, the AI-driven Gen-Alpha education guidance indicator empowers students to embark on their educational journeys well-informed and confident, thereby playing a pivotal role in advancing Oman's education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing given medical databases provide valuable references for classifying other patients symptoms. This study presents a strategy for discovering fuzzy decision trees from medical databases, in particular Harbeman's Survival database and the Blood Transfusion Service Center database. Harbeman's Survival database helps doctors treat and diagnose a group of patients who show similar past medical symptoms and the Blood Transfusion Service Center database advises individuals about when to donate blood. The proposed data mining procedure involves neural network based clustering using Adaptive Resonance Theory 2 (ART2), and the extraction of fuzzy decision trees for each homogeneous cluster of data records using fuzzy set theory. Besides, another objective of this paper is to examine the effect of the number of membership functions on building decision trees. Experiments confirm that the number of erroneously clustered patterns is significantly reduced compared to other methods without preprocessing data using ART2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Wrapper feature selection approaches are widely used to choose a small subset of relevant features from a dataset. However, Wrappers suffer from the fact that they only use a single classifier. The downside to this is that each classifier will have its own biases and will therefore select very different features. To overcome the biases of individual classifiers, we propose a new data mining method called Wrapper-based Decision Trees (WDT). The WDT method uses multiple classifiers for selecting relevant features and decision trees to visualize relationships among the selected features. We use the WDT to investigate the influences of the levels of computer experience on users’ preferences for the design of search engines. The benefit of using WDT lies within the fact that it can uncover the most accurate set of relevant features to help differentiate the preferences of users with diverse levels of computer experience. The results indicate that the users with varied levels of computer experiences have different preferences regarding the following features: the number of icons, the arrangement of search results, and the presentation of error messages. Such findings can be used to develop personalized search engines to accommodate users’ different levels of computer experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In real world situations, explanations for the same observations may be different depending on perceptions or contexts. They may change with time especially when concept drift occurs. This phenomenon incurs ambiguities. It is useful if an algorithm can learn to reflect ambiguities and select the best decision according to context or situation. Based on this viewpoint, we study the problem of deriving ambiguous decision trees from data streams to cope with concept drift. CVFDT (Concept-adapting Very Fast Decision Tree) is one of the most well-known streaming data mining methods that can learn decision trees incrementally. In this paper, we establish a method called ambiguous CVFDT (aCVFDT), which integrates ambiguities into CVFDT by exploring multiple options at each node whenever a node is to be split. When aCVFDT is used to make class predictions, it is guaranteed that the best and newest knowledge is used. When old concepts recur, aCVFDT can immediately relearn them by using the corresponding options recorded at each node. Furthermore, CVFDT does not automatically detect occurrences of concept drift and only scans trees periodically, whereas an automatic concept drift detecting mechanism is used in aCVFDT. In our experiments, hyperplane problem and two benchmark problems from the UCI KDD Archive, namely Network Intrusion and Forest CoverType, are used to validate the performance of aCVFDT. The experimental results show that aCVFDT obtains significantly improved results over traditional CVFDT. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this work, a new approach to the recognition of odors, based on decision trees, is presented. This approach has been implemented using a database of sandalwood molecules and an expert knowledge for these molecules. Decision trees are used to learn from this database a powerful rule set determining the presence or the absence of odor. For a better prediction, the method uses an aggregation between molecule descriptors. We apply three aggregation operators: Zadeh, Lukasiewicz, and Ordered Weighted Averaging. The main olfactory descriptor was correctly predicted by this method for 88% of the elements of the testing set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]