Weighted Hybrid Decision Tree Model for Random Forest Classifier

Random Forest is an ensemble, supervised machine learning algorithm. An ensemble generates many classifiers and combines their results by majority voting. Random forest uses decision tree as base classifier. In decision tree induction, an attribute split/evaluation measure is used to decide the best split at each node of the decision tree. The generalization error of a forest of tree classifiers depends on the strength of the individual trees in the forest and the correlation among them. The work presented in this paper is related to attribute split measures and is a two step process: first theoretical study of the five selected split measures is done and a comparison matrix is generated to understand pros and cons of each measure. These theoretical results are verified by performing empirical analysis. For empirical analysis, random forest is generated using each of the five selected split measures, chosen one at a time. i.e. random forest using information gain, random forest using gain ratio, etc. The next step is, based on this theoretical and empirical analysis, a new approach of hybrid decision tree model for random forest classifier is proposed. In this model, individual decision tree in Random Forest is generated using different split measures. This model is augmented by weighted voting based on the strength of individual tree. The new approach has shown notable increase in the accuracy of random forest. © 2014, The Institution of Engineers (India).