Related papers: Every decision tree has an influential variable
Random forests are classical ensemble algorithms that construct multiple randomized decision trees and aggregate their predictions using naive averaging. \citet{zhou2019deep} further propose a deep forest algorithm with multi-layer forests,…
In this paper, we study extremal values for the determinant of the weighted graph Laplacian under simple nondegeneracy conditions on the weights. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the determinant of the Laplacian to be…
We present a general theoretical analysis of structured prediction with a series of new results. We give new data-dependent margin guarantees for structured prediction for a very wide family of loss functions and a general family of…
We report on work towards flexible algorithms for solving decision problems represented as influence diagrams. An algorithm is given to construct a tree structure for each decision node in an influence diagram. Each tree represents a…
We consider the minimum spanning tree problem in a setting where the edge weights are stochastic from unknown distributions, and the only available information is a single sample of each edge's weight distribution. In this setting, we…
A function $f:\ \{-1,1\}^n\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is called pseudo-Boolean. It is well-known that each pseudo-Boolean function $f$ can be written as $f(x)=\sum_{I\in {\cal F}}\hat{f}(I)\chi_I(x),$ where ${\cal F}\subseteq \{I:\ I\subseteq…
The approximate non-deterministic degree of a Boolean function $f$, denoted $\mathsf{ndeg}_\epsilon(f)$ (written $\mathsf{N}_\epsilon(f)$ for brevity), is the minimum degree of a real polynomial $p$ such that $0 \le |p(x)| \le \epsilon$…
Causal random forests provide efficient estimates of heterogeneous treatment effects. However, forest algorithms are also well-known for their black-box nature, and therefore, do not characterize how input variables are involved in…
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…
Let $(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$ be an i.i.d. sequence of random variables in $\mathbb{R}^d$, $d\geq 1$. We show that, for any function $\varphi :\mathbb{R}^d\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$, under regularity conditions, \[n^…
Probabilistic sentential decision diagrams are logic circuits where the inputs of disjunctive gates are annotated by probability values. They allow for a compact representation of joint probability mass functions defined over sets of…
We prove that, for every $k=1,2,...,$ every shortest-path metric on a graph of pathwidth $k$ embeds into a distribution over random trees with distortion at most $c$ for some $c=c(k)$. A well-known conjecture of Gupta, Newman, Rabinovich,…
Fisherian randomization inference is often dismissed as testing an uninteresting and implausible hypothesis: the sharp null of no effects whatsoever. We show that this view is overly narrow. Many randomization tests are also valid under a…
As opaque black-box predictive models become more prevalent, the need to develop interpretations for these models is of great interest. The concept of variable importance and Shapley values are interpretability measures that applies to any…
We consider lower bounds on the number of spanning trees of connected graphs with degree bounded by $d$. The question is of interest because such bounds may improve the analysis of the improvement produced by memorisation in the runtime of…
We consider the message complexity of verifying whether a given subgraph of the communication network forms a tree with specific properties both in the KT-$\rho$ (nodes know their $\rho$-hop neighborhood, including node IDs) and the KT-$0$…
We study a general class of nonlinear iterative algorithms which includes power iteration, belief propagation and approximate message passing, and many forms of gradient descent. When the input is a random matrix with i.i.d. entries, we use…
A function $f$ is $d$-resilient if all its Fourier coefficients of degree at most $d$ are zero, i.e., $f$ is uncorrelated with all low-degree parities. We study the notion of $\mathit{approximate}$ $\mathit{resilience}$ of Boolean…
We introduce the notion of quota trees in directed graphs. Given a nonnegative integer ``quota'' for each vertex of a directed multigraph $G$, a quota tree is an immersed rooted tree which hits each vertex of $G$ the prescribed number of…
Chang's lemma (Duke Mathematical Journal, 2002) is a classical result with applications across several areas in mathematics and computer science. For a Boolean function $f$ that takes values in {-1,1} let $r(f)$ denote its Fourier rank. For…