Global induction of oblique decision trees: An evolutionary approach

A new evolutionary algorithm for induction of oblique decision trees is proposed. In contrast to the classical top-down approach, it searches for the whole tree at the moment. Specialized genetic operators are developed, which enable modifying both the tree structure and the splitting hyper-planes in non-terminal nodes. The problem of over-fitting can be avoided thanks to suitably defined fitness function. Experimental results on both synthetical and real-life data are presented and compared with obtained by the state-of-the-art decision tree systems.