Togaware DATA MINING
Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams
Google

Decision Trees

Decision trees are one of the classic machine learning techniques widely deployed in data mining.

The model (i.e., the discovered knowledge) is expressed in the form of a simple decision tree. At each node of the tree we test the value of one of the variables, and depending on its value, we follow one of the branches emanating from that node. Thus, each branch can be thought of as having a test associated with it, for example Age $<$ 35. This branch then leads to another node where there will be another variable to test, and so on, until we reach a leaf node of the tree. The leaf node represents the decision to be made. For example, it may be a yes or no for deciding whether an insurance claim appears to be fraudulent.

The algorithm for searching through all possible decision trees



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