Related papers: On the Consistency of a Random Forest Algorithm in…

In this paper we present the practical benefits of a new random forest algorithm to deal withmissing values in the sample. The purpose of this work is to compare the different solutionsto deal with missing values with random forests and…

Despite their performance and widespread use, little is known about the theory of Random Forests. A major unanswered question is whether, or when, the Random Forest algorithm is consistent. The literature explores various variants of the…

We present a method for incorporating missing data in non-parametric statistical learning without the need for imputation. We focus on a tree-based method, Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART), enhanced with "Missingness Incorporated…

Data mining and machine learning techniques such as classification and regression trees (CART) represent a promising alternative to conventional logistic regression for propensity score estimation. Whereas incomplete data preclude the…

As a flexible nonparametric learning tool, the random forests algorithm has been widely applied to various real applications with appealing empirical performance, even in the presence of high-dimensional feature space. Unveiling the…

Two algorithms proposed by Leo Breiman : CART trees (Classification And Regression Trees for) introduced in the first half of the 80s and random forests emerged, meanwhile, in the early 2000s, are the subject of this article. The goal is to…

Combining machine learning with econometric analysis is becoming increasingly prevalent in both research and practice. A common empirical strategy involves the application of predictive modeling techniques to 'mine' variables of interest…

This paper shows that decision trees constructed with Classification and Regression Trees (CART) and C4.5 methodology are consistent for regression and classification tasks, even when the number of predictor variables grows…

Matrix completion is the study of recovering an underlying matrix from a sparse subset of noisy observations. Traditionally, it is assumed that the entries of the matrix are "missing completely at random" (MCAR), i.e., each entry is…

Given a set of incomplete observations, we study the nonparametric problem of testing whether data are Missing Completely At Random (MCAR). Our first contribution is to characterise precisely the set of alternatives that can be…

One advantage of decision tree based methods like random forests is their ability to natively handle categorical predictors without having to first transform them (e.g., by using feature engineering techniques). However, in this paper, we…

Random forests are a widely used machine learning algorithm, but their computational efficiency is undermined when applied to large-scale datasets with numerous instances and useless features. Herein, we propose a nonparametric feature…

Random forests are a learning algorithm proposed by Breiman [Mach. Learn. 45 (2001) 5--32] that combines several randomized decision trees and aggregates their predictions by averaging. Despite its wide usage and outstanding practical…

Random forest (RF) missing data algorithms are an attractive approach for dealing with missing data. They have the desirable properties of being able to handle mixed types of missing data, they are adaptive to interactions and nonlinearity,…

An important issue when using Machine Learning algorithms in recent research is the lack of interpretability. Although these algorithms provide accurate point predictions for various learning problems, uncertainty estimates connected with…

A very simple interpretation of matrix completion problem is introduced based on statistical models. Combined with the well-known results from missing data analysis, such interpretation indicates that matrix completion is still a valid and…

Prediction models are used to predict an outcome based on input variables. Missing data in input variables often occurs at model development and at prediction time. The missForestPredict R package proposes an adaptation of the missForest…

Classification and Regression Trees (CARTs) are off-the-shelf techniques in modern Statistics and Machine Learning. CARTs are traditionally built by means of a greedy procedure, sequentially deciding the splitting predictor variable(s) and…

We consider identification and estimation with an outcome missing not at random (MNAR). We study an identification strategy based on a so-called shadow variable. A shadow variable is assumed to be correlated with the outcome, but…

We consider conducting inference on the output of the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) [Breiman et al., 1984] algorithm. A naive approach to inference that does not account for the fact that the tree was estimated from the data…