Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #192850. 	[Title] Characterizing the generalization performance of model selection strategies [Abstract] We investigate the structure of model selection problems via the bias/variance decomposition. In particular, we characterize the essential aspects of a model selection task by the bias and variance profiles it generates over the sequence of hypothesis classes. With this view, we develop a new understanding of complexity-penalization methods: First, the penalty terms can be interpreted as postulating a particular profile for the variances as a function of model complexityif the postulated and true profiles do not match, then systematic under-fitting or over-fitting results, depending on whether the penalty terms are too large or too small. Second, we observe that it is generally best to penalize according to the true variances of the task, and therefore no fixed penalization strategy is optimal across all problems. We then use this characterization to introduce the notion of easy versus hard model selection problems. Here we show that if the variance profile grows too rapidly in relation to the biases, then standard model selection techniques become prone to significant errors. This can happen, for example, in regression problems where the independent variables are drawn from wide-tailed distributions. To counter this, we discuss a new model selection strategy that dramatically outperforms standard complexity-penalization and hold-out meth ods on these hard tasks. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #45188. 	[Title] A Bound on the Error of Cross Validation Using the Approximation and Estimation Rates, with [Abstract] We give an analysis of the generalization error of cross validation in terms of two natural measures of the difficulty of the problem under consideration: the approximation rate (the accuracy to which the target function can be ideally approximated as a function of the number of hypothesis parameters), and the estimation rate (the deviation between the training and generalization errors as a function of the number of hypothesis parameters). The approximation rate captures the complexity of the target function with respect to the hypothesis model, and the estimation rate captures the extent to which the hypothesis model suffers from overfitting. Using these two measures, we give a rigorous and general bound on the error of cross validation. The bound clearly shows the tradeoffs involved with making fl the fraction of data saved for testing too large or too small. By optimizing the bound with respect to fl, we then argue (through a combination of formal analysis, plotting, and controlled experimentation) that the following qualitative properties of cross validation behavior should be quite robust to significant changes in the underlying model selection problem: Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #45189. 	[Title] An Experimental and Theoretical Comparison of Model Selection Methods on simple model selection problems, the [Abstract] We investigate the problem of model selection in the setting of supervised learning of boolean functions from independent random examples. More precisely, we compare methods for finding a balance between the complexity of the hypothesis chosen and its observed error on a random training sample of limited size, when the goal is that of minimizing the resulting generalization error. We undertake a detailed comparison of three well-known model selection methods | a variation of Vapnik's Guaranteed Risk Minimization (GRM), an instance of Rissanen's Minimum Description Length Principle (MDL), and cross validation (CV). We introduce a general class of model selection methods (called penalty-based methods) that includes both GRM and MDL, and provide general methods for analyzing such rules. We provide both controlled experimental evidence and formal theorems to support the following conclusions: * The class of penalty-based methods is fundamentally handicapped in the sense that there exist two types of model selection problems for which every penalty-based method must incur large generalization error on at least one, while CV enjoys small generalization error Despite the inescapable incomparability of model selection methods under certain circumstances, we conclude with a discussion of our belief that the balance of the evidence provides specific reasons to prefer CV to other methods, unless one is in possession of detailed problem-specific information. on both. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #8079. 	[Title] Bias Plus Variance Decomposition for Zero-One Loss Functions [Abstract] We present a bias-variance decomposition of expected misclassification rate, the most commonly used loss function in supervised classification learning. The bias-variance decomposition for quadratic loss functions is well known and serves as an important tool for analyzing learning algorithms, yet no decomposition was offered for the more commonly used zero-one (misclassification) loss functions until the recent work of Kong & Dietterich (1995) and Breiman (1996). Their decomposition suffers from some major shortcomings though (e.g., potentially negative variance), which our decomposition avoids. We show that, in practice, the naive frequency-based estimation of the decomposition terms is by itself biased and show how to correct for this bias. We illustrate the decomposition on various algorithms and datasets from the UCI repository. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #49811. 	[Title] Estimating the Accuracy of Learned Concepts [Abstract] This paper investigates alternative estimators of the accuracy of concepts learned from examples. In particular, the cross-validation and 632 bootstrap estimators are studied, using synthetic training data and the foil learning algorithm. Our experimental results contradict previous papers in statistics, which advocate the 632 bootstrap method as superior to cross-validation. Nevertheless, our results also suggest that conclusions based on cross-validation in previous machine learning papers are unreliable. Specifically, our observations are that (i) the true error of the concept learned by foil from independently drawn sets of examples of the same concept varies widely, (ii) the estimate of true error provided by cross-validation has high variability but is approximately unbiased, and (iii) the 632 bootstrap estimator has lower variability than cross-validation, but is systematically biased. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #976284. 	[Title] Algorithmic Stability and Sanity-Check Bounds for Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation [Abstract] In this paper we prove sanity-check bounds for the error of the leave-one-out cross-validation estimate of the generalization error: that is, bounds showing that the worst-case error of this estimate is not much worse than that of the training error estimate. The name sanity-check refers to the fact that although we often expect the leave-one-out estimate to perform considerably better than the training error estimate, we are here only seeking assurance that its performance will not be considerably worse. Perhaps surprisingly, such assurance has been given only for rather limited cases in the prior literature on cross-validation. Any nontrivial bound on the error of leave-one-out must rely on some notion of algorithmic stability. Previous bounds relied on the rather strong notion of hypothesis stability, whose application was primarily limited to nearest-neighbor and other local algorithms. Here we introduce the new and weaker notion of error stability, and apply it to obtain sanity-check bounds for leave-one-out for other classes of learning algorithms, including training error minimization procedures and Bayesian algorithms. We also provide lower bounds demonstrating the necessity of error stability for proving bounds on the error of the leave-one-out estimate, and the fact that for training error minimization algorithms, in the worst case such bounds must still depend on the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of the hypothesis class. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #3233. 	[Title] A Study of Cross-Validation and Bootstrap for Accuracy Estimation and Model Selection [Abstract] We review accuracy estimation methods and compare the two most common methods: cross-validation and bootstrap. Recent experimental results on artificial data and theoretical results in restricted settings have shown that for selecting a good classifier from a set of classifiers (model selection), ten-fold cross-validation may be better than the more expensive leave-one-out cross-validation. We report on a large-scale experiment|over half a million runs of C4.5 and a Naive-Bayes algorithm|to estimate the effects of different parameters on these algorithms on real-world datasets. For cross-validation, we vary the number of folds and whether the folds are stratified or not; for bootstrap, we vary the number of bootstrap samples. Our results indicate that for real-word datasets similar to ours, the best method to use for model selection is ten-fold stratified cross validation, even if computation power allows using more folds. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #66594. 	[Title] Automatic Parameter Selection by Minimizing Estimated Error [Abstract] We address the problem of finding the parameter settings that will result in optimal performance of a given learning algorithm using a particular dataset as training data. We describe a "wrapper" method, considering determination of the best parameters as a discrete function optimization problem. The method uses best-first search and cross-validation to wrap around the basic induction algorithm: the search explores the space of parameter values, running the basic algorithm many times on training and holdout sets produced by cross-validation to get an estimate of the expected error of each parameter setting. Thus, the final selected parameter settings are tuned for the specific induction algorithm and dataset being studied. We report experiments with this method on 33 datasets selected from the UCI and StatLog collections using C4.5 as the basic induction algorithm. At a 90% confidence level, our method improves the performance of C4.5 on nine domains, degrades performance on one, and is statistically indistinguishable from C4.5 on the rest. On the sample of datasets used for comparison, our method yields an average 13% relative decrease in error rate. We expect to see similar performance improvements when using our method with other machine learning al gorithms. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #3236. 	[Title] MLC A Machine Learning Library in C [Abstract] We present MLC ++ , a library of C ++ classes and tools for supervised Machine Learning. While MLC ++ provides general learning algorithms that can be used by end users, the main objective is to provide researchers and experts with a wide variety of tools that can accelerate algorithm development, increase software reliability, provide comparison tools, and display information visually. More than just a collection of existing algorithms, MLC ++ is an attempt to extract commonalities of algorithms and decompose them for a unified view that is simple, coherent, and extensible. In this paper we discuss the problems MLC ++ aims to solve, the design of MLC ++ , and the current functionality. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #3240. 	[Title] An Analysis of Bayesian Classifiers (1988), involves the formulation of average-case models for specific algorithms [Abstract] In this paper we present an average-case analysis of the Bayesian classifier, a simple induction algorithm that fares remarkably well on many learning tasks. Our analysis assumes a monotone conjunctive target concept, and independent, noise-free Boolean attributes. We calculate the probability that the algorithm will induce an arbitrary pair of concept descriptions and then use this to compute the probability of correct classification over the instance space. The analysis takes into account the number of training instances, the number of attributes, the distribution of these attributes, and the level of class noise. We also explore the behavioral implications of the analysis by presenting predicted learning curves for artificial domains, and give experimental results on these domains as a check on our reasoning. One goal of research in machine learning is to discover principles that relate algorithms and domain characteristics to behavior. To this end, many researchers have carried out systematic experimentation with natural and artificial domains in search of empirical regularities (e.g., Kibler & Langley, 1988). Others have focused on theoretical analyses, often within the paradigm of probably approximately correct learning (e.g., Haus-sler, 1990). However, most experimental studies are based only on informal analyses of the learning task, whereas most formal analyses address the worst case, and thus bear little relation to empirical results. ber of attributes, and the class and attribute frequencies, they obtain predictions about the behavior of induction algorithms and used experiments to check their analyses. 1 However, their research does not focus on algorithms typically used by the experimental and practical sides of machine learning, and it is important that average-case analyses be extended to such methods. Recently, there has been growing interest in probabilistic approaches to inductive learning. For example, Fisher (1987) has described Cobweb, an incremental algorithm for conceptual clustering that draws heavily on Bayesian ideas, and the literature reports a number of systems that build on this work (e.g., Allen & Lang-ley, 1990; Iba & Gennari, 1991; Thompson & Langley, 1991). Cheeseman et al. (1988) have outlined Auto-Class, a nonincremental system that uses Bayesian methods to cluster instances into groups, and other researchers have focused on the induction of Bayesian inference networks (e.g., Cooper & Kerskovits, 1991). These recent Bayesian learning algorithms are complex and not easily amenable to analysis, but they share a common ancestor that is simpler and more tractable. This supervised algorithm, which we refer to simply as a Bayesian classifier, comes originally from work in pattern recognition (Duda & Hart, 1973). The method stores a probabilistic summary for each class; this summary contains the conditional probability of each attribute value given the class, as well as the probability (or base rate) of the class. This data structure approximates the representational power of a perceptron; it describes a single decision boundary through the instance space. When the algorithm encounters a new instance, it updates the probabilities stored with the specified class. Neither the order of training instances nor the occurrence of classification errors have any effect on this process. When given a test instance, the classifier uses an evaluation function (which we describe in detail later) to rank the alter Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1105450. 	[Title] A Fast, Bottom-Up Decision Tree Pruning Algorithm with Near-Optimal Generalization [Abstract] In this work, we present a new bottom-up algorithm for decision tree pruning that is very efficient (requiring only a single pass through the given tree), and prove a strong performance guarantee for the generalization error of the resulting pruned tree. We work in the typical setting in which the given tree T may have been derived from the given training sample S, and thus may badly overfit S. In this setting, we give bounds on the amount of additional generalization error that our pruning suffers compared to the optimal pruning of T . More generally, our results show that if there is a pruning of T with small error, and whose size is small compared to jSj, then our algorithm will find a pruning whose error is not much larger. This style of result has been called an index of resolvability result by Barron and Cover in the context of density estimation. A novel feature of our algorithm is its locality | the decision to prune a subtree is based entirely on properties of that subtree and the sample reaching it. To analyze our algorithm, we develop tools of local uniform convergence, a generalization of the standard notion that may prove useful in other settings. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #36145. 	[Title] Generating Accurate and Diverse Members of a Neural-Network Ensemble [Abstract] Neural-network ensembles have been shown to be very accurate classification techniques. Previous work has shown that an effective ensemble should consist of networks that are not only highly correct, but ones that make their errors on different parts of the input space as well. Most existing techniques, however, only indirectly address the problem of creating such a set of networks. In this paper we present a technique called Addemup that uses genetic algorithms to directly search for an accurate and diverse set of trained networks. Addemup works by first creating an initial population, then uses genetic operators to continually create new networks, keeping the set of networks that are as accurate as possible while disagreeing with each other as much as possible. Experiments on three DNA problems show that Addemup is able to generate a set of trained networks that is more accurate than several existing approaches. Experiments also show that Addemup is able to effectively incorporate prior knowledge, if available, to improve the quality of its ensemble. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #509379. 	[Title] Model selection using measure functions [Abstract] The concept of measure functions for generalization performance is suggested. This concept provides an alternative way of selecting and evaluating learned models (classifiers). In addition, it makes it possible to state a learning problem as a computational problem. The the known prior (meta-)knowledge about the problem domain is captured in a measure function that, to each possible combination of a training set and a classifier, assigns a value describing how good the classifier is. The computational problem is then to find a classifier maximizing the measure function. We argue that measure functions are of great value for practical applications. Besides of being a tool for model selection, they: (i) force us to make explicit the relevant prior knowledge about the learning problem at hand, (ii) provide a deeper understanding of existing algorithms, and (iii) help us in the construction of problem-specific algorithms. We illustrate the last point by suggesting a novel algorithm based on incremental search for a classifier that optimizes a given measure function. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #4804. 	[Title] Toward Efficient Agnostic Learning [Abstract] In this paper we initiate an investigation of generalizations of the Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) learning model that attempt to significantly weaken the target function assumptions. The ultimate goal in this direction is informally termed agnostic learning, in which we make virtually no assumptions on the target function. The name derives from the fact that as designers of learning algorithms, we give up the belief that Nature (as represented by the target function) has a simple or succinct explanation. We give a number of positive and negative results that provide an initial outline of the possibilities for agnostic learning. Our results include hardness results for the most obvious generalization of the PAC model to an agnostic setting, an efficient and general agnostic learning method based on dynamic programming, relationships between loss functions for agnostic learning, and an algorithm for a learning problem that involves hidden variables. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1121867. 	[Title] MAJORITY VOTE CLASSIFIERS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS [Abstract]  Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #89547. 	[Title] Rigorous Learning Curve Bounds from Statistical Mechanics [Abstract] In this paper we introduce and investigate a mathematically rigorous theory of learning curves that is based on ideas from statistical mechanics. The advantage of our theory over the well-established Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory is that our bounds can be considerably tighter in many cases, and are also more reflective of the true behavior (functional form) of learning curves. This behavior can often exhibit dramatic properties such as phase transitions, as well as power law asymptotics not explained by the VC theory. The disadvantages of our theory are that its application requires knowledge of the input distribution, and it is limited so far to finite cardinality function classes. We illustrate our results with many concrete examples of learning curve bounds derived from our theory. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1997. 	[Title] Cross-Validation and the Bootstrap: Estimating the Error Rate of a Prediction Rule [Abstract] A training set of data has been used to construct a rule for predicting future responses. What is the error rate of this rule? The traditional answer to this question is given by cross-validation. The cross-validation estimate of prediction error is nearly unbiased, but can be highly variable. This article discusses bootstrap estimates of prediction error, which can be thought of as smoothed versions of cross-validation. A particular bootstrap method, the 632+ rule, is shown to substantially outperform cross-validation in a catalog of 24 simulation experiments. Besides providing point estimates, we also consider estimating the variability of an error rate estimate. All of the results here are nonparametric, and apply to any possible prediction rule: however we only study classification problems with 0-1 loss in detail. Our simulations include "smooth" prediction rules like Fisher's Linear Discriminant Function, and unsmooth ones like Nearest Neighbors. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #272720. 	[Title] A New Metric-Based Approach to Model Selection [Abstract] We introduce a new approach to model selection that performs better than the standard complexity-penalization and hold-out error estimation techniques in many cases. The basic idea is to exploit the intrinsic metric structure of a hypothesis space, as determined by the natural distribution of unlabeled training patterns, and use this metric as a reference to detect whether the empirical error estimates derived from a small (labeled) training sample can be trusted in the region around an empirically optimal hypothesis. Using simple metric intuitions we develop new geometric strategies for detecting overfitting and performing robust yet responsive model selection in spaces of candidate functions. These new metric-based strategies dramatically outperform previous approaches in experimental studies of classical polynomial curve fitting. Moreover, the technique is simple, efficient, and can be applied to most function learning tasks. The only requirement is access to an auxiliary collection of unlabeled training data. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #39124. 	[Title] The Utility of Feature Weighting in Nearest-Neighbor Algorithms [Abstract] Nearest-neighbor algorithms are known to depend heavily on their distance metric. In this paper, we investigate the use of a weighted Euclidean metric in which the weight for each feature comes from a small set of options. We describe Diet, an algorithm that directs search through a space of discrete weights using cross-validation error as its evaluation function. Although a large set of possible weights can reduce the learner's bias, it can also lead to increased variance and overfitting. Our empirical study shows that, for many data sets, there is an advantage to weighting features, but that increasing the number of possible weights beyond two (zero and one) has very little benefit and sometimes degrades performance. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1125467. 	[Title] Bayesian Network Classification with Continuous Attributes: Getting the Best of Both Discretization and Parametric Fitting [Abstract] In a recent paper, Friedman, Geiger, and Goldszmidt [8] introduced a classifier based on Bayesian networks, called Tree Augmented Naive Bayes (TAN), that outperforms naive Bayes and performs competitively with C4.5 and other state-of-the-art methods. This classifier has several advantages including robustness and polynomial computational complexity. One limitation of the TAN classifier is that it applies only to discrete attributes, and thus, continuous attributes must be prediscretized. In this paper, we extend TAN to deal with continuous attributes directly via parametric (e.g., Gaussians) and semiparametric (e.g., mixture of Gaussians) conditional probabilities. The result is a classifier that can represent and combine both discrete and continuous attributes. In addition, we propose a new method that takes advantage of the modeling language of Bayesian networks in order to represent attributes both in discrete and continuous form simultaneously, and use both versions in the classification. This automates the process of deciding which form of the attribute is most relevant to the classification task. It also avoids the commitment to either a discretized or a (semi)parametric form, since different attributes may correlate better with one version or the other. Our empirical results show that this latter method usually achieves classification performance that is as good as or better than either the purely discrete or the purely continuous TAN models. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #192734. 	[Title] Preventing "Overfitting" of Cross-Validation Data [Abstract] Suppose that, for a learning task, we have to select one hypothesis out of a set of hypotheses (that may, for example, have been generated by multiple applications of a randomized learning algorithm). A common approach is to evaluate each hypothesis in the set on some previously unseen cross-validation data, and then to select the hypothesis that had the lowest cross-validation error. But when the cross-validation data is partially corrupted such as by noise, and if the set of hypotheses we are selecting from is large, then "folklore" also warns about "overfitting" the cross-validation data [Klockars and Sax, 1986, Tukey, 1949, Tukey, 1953]. In this paper, we explain how this "overfitting" really occurs, and show the surprising result that it can be overcome by selecting a hypothesis with a higher cross-validation error, over others with lower cross-validation errors. We give reasons for not selecting the hypothesis with the lowest cross-validation error, and propose a new algorithm, LOOCVCV, that uses a computa-tionally efficient form of leave-one-out cross-validation to select such a hypothesis. Finally, we present experimental results for one domain, that show LOOCVCV consistently beating picking the hypothesis with the lowest cross-validation error, even when using reasonably large cross-validation sets. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #105057. 	[Title] Error-Correcting Output Codes for Local Learners [Abstract] Error-correcting output codes (ECOCs) represent classes with a set of output bits, where each bit encodes a binary classification task corresponding to a unique partition of the classes. Algorithms that use ECOCs learn the function corresponding to each bit, and combine them to generate class predictions. ECOCs can reduce both variance and bias errors for multiclass classification tasks when the errors made at the output bits are not correlated. They work well with algorithms that eagerly induce global classifiers (e.g., C4.5) but do not assist simple local classifiers (e.g., nearest neighbor), which yield correlated predictions across the output bits. We show that the output bit predictions of local learners can be decorrelated by selecting different features for each bit. We present promising empirical results for this combination of ECOCs, near est neighbor, and feature selection. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1132385. 	[Title] Towards Robust Model Selection using Estimation and Approximation Error Bounds [Abstract]  Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1106401. 	[Title] Model Selection based on Minimum Description Length [Abstract]  Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #154982. 	[Title] Bias, variance and prediction error for classification rules [Abstract] We study the notions of bias and variance for classification rules. Following Efron (1978) we develop a decomposition of prediction error into its natural components. Then we derive bootstrap estimates of these components and illustrate how they can be used to describe the error behaviour of a classifier in practice. In the process we also obtain a bootstrap estimate of the error of a "bagged" classifier. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1114222. 	[Title] Lazy Bayesian Trees [Abstract] The naive Bayesian classifier is simple and effective, but its attribute independence assumption is often violated in the real world. A number of approaches have been developed that seek to alleviate this problem. A Bayesian tree learning algorithm builds a decision tree, and generates a local Bayesian classifier at each leaf instead of predicting a single class. However, Bayesian tree learning still suffers from the replication and fragmentation problems of tree learning. While inferred Bayesian trees demonstrate low average prediction error rates, there is reason to believe that error rates will be higher for those leaves with few training examples. This paper proposes a novel lazy Bayesian tree learning algorithm. For each test example, it conceptually builds a most appropriate Bayesian tree. In practice, only one path with a local Bayesian classifier at its leaf is created. Experiments with a wide variety of real-world and artificial domains show that this new algorithm has significantly lower overall prediction error rates than a naive Bayesian classifier, C4.5, and a Bayesian tree learning algorithm. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #27249. 	[Title] Machine Learning Bias, Statistical Bias, and Statistical Variance of Decision Tree Algorithms [Abstract] The term "bias" is widely used|and with different meanings|in the fields of machine learning and statistics. This paper clarifies the uses of this term and shows how to measure and visualize the statistical bias and variance of learning algorithms. Statistical bias and variance can be applied to diagnose problems with machine learning bias, and the paper shows four examples of this. Finally, the paper discusses methods of reducing bias and variance. Methods based on voting can reduce variance, and the paper compares Breiman's bagging method and our own tree randomization method for voting decision trees. Both methods uniformly improve performance on data sets from the Irvine repository. Tree randomization yields perfect performance on the Letter Recognition task. A weighted nearest neighbor algorithm based on the infinite bootstrap is also introduced. In general, decision tree algorithms have moderate-to-high variance, so an important implication of this work is that variance|rather than appropriate or inappropriate machine learning bias|is an important cause of poor performance for decision tree algorithms. Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #27250. 	[Title] Why Does Bagging Work? A Bayesian Account and its Implications bagging's success, both in a [Abstract] The error rate of decision-tree and other classification learners can often be much reduced by bagging: learning multiple models from bootstrap samples of the database, and combining them by uniform voting. In this paper we empirically test two alternative explanations for this, both based on Bayesian learning theory: (1) bagging works because it is an approximation to the optimal procedure of Bayesian model averaging, with an appropriate implicit prior; (2) bagging works because it effectively shifts the prior to a more appropriate region of model space. All the experimental evidence contradicts the first hypothesis, and confirms the second. Bagging (Breiman 1996a) is a simple and effective way to reduce the error rate of many classification learning algorithms. For example, in the empirical study described below, it reduces the error of a decision-tree learner in 19 of 26 databases, by 4% on average. In the bagging procedure, given a training set of size s, a "bootstrap" replicate of it is constructed by taking s samples with replacement from the training set. Thus a new training set of the same size is produced, where each of the original examples may appear once, more than once, or not. On average, 63% of the original examples will appear in the bootstrap sample. The learning algorithm is then applied to this training set. This procedure is repeated m times, and the resulting m models are aggregated by uniform voting. Bagging is one of several "multiple model" approaches that have recently received much attention (see, for example, (Chan, Stolfo, & Wolpert 1996)). Other procedures of this type include boosting (Freund & Schapire 1996) and stacking (Wolpert 1992). Please summarise all the given information.

Above are papers related to the following paper: [Paper_ID] Paper #1103737. 	[Title] On learning hierarchical classifications [Abstract] Many significant real-world classification tasks involve a large number of categories which are arranged in a hierarchical structure; for example, classifying documents into subject categories under the library of congress scheme, or classifying world-wide-web documents into topic hierarchies. We investigate the potential benefits of using a given hierarchy over base classes to learn accurate multi-category classifiers for these domains. First, we consider the possibility of exploiting a class hierarchy as prior knowledge that can help one learn a more accurate classifier. We explore the benefits of learning category-discriminants in a hard top-down fashion and compare this to a soft approach which shares training data among sibling categories. In doing so, we verify that hierarchies have the potential to improve prediction accuracy. But we argue that the reasons for this can be subtle. Sometimes, the improvement is only because using a hierarchy happens to constrain the expressiveness of a hypothesis class in an appropriate manner. However, various controlled experiments show that in other cases the performance advantage associated with using a hierarchy really does seem to be due to the prior knowledge it encodes. Please summarise all the given information.

Paper #192850 has the title `Characterizing the generalization performance of model selection strategies  
` and the abstract `We investigate the structure of model selection problems via the bias/variance decomposition. In particular, we characterize the essential aspects of a model selection task by the bias and variance profiles it generates over the sequence of hypothesis classes. With this view, we develop a new understanding of complexity-penalization methods: First, the penalty terms can be interpreted as postulating a particular profile for the variances as a function of model complexityif the postulated and true profiles do not match, then systematic under-fitting or over-fitting results, depending on whether the penalty terms are too large or too small. Second, we observe that it is generally best to penalize according to the true variances of the task, and therefore no fixed penalization strategy is optimal across all problems. We then use this characterization to introduce the notion of easy versus hard model selection problems. Here we show that if the variance profile grows too rapidly in relation to the biases, then standard model selection techniques become prone to significant errors. This can happen, for example, in regression problems where the independent variables are drawn from wide-tailed distributions. To counter this, we discuss a new model selection strategy that dramatically outperforms standard complexity-penalization and hold-out meth ods on these hard tasks.
`.
Question: Which category should Paper #192850 be classified as ?
You can select one from ['Neural_Networks', 'Case_Based', 'Theory', 'Reinforcement_Learning', 'Probabilistic_Methods', 'Rule_Learning', 'Genetic_Algorithms'].


Paper #192850 has the title `Characterizing the generalization performance of model selection strategies  
` and the abstract `We investigate the structure of model selection problems via the bias/variance decomposition. In particular, we characterize the essential aspects of a model selection task by the bias and variance profiles it generates over the sequence of hypothesis classes. With this view, we develop a new understanding of complexity-penalization methods: First, the penalty terms can be interpreted as postulating a particular profile for the variances as a function of model complexityif the postulated and true profiles do not match, then systematic under-fitting or over-fitting results, depending on whether the penalty terms are too large or too small. Second, we observe that it is generally best to penalize according to the true variances of the task, and therefore no fixed penalization strategy is optimal across all problems. We then use this characterization to introduce the notion of easy versus hard model selection problems. Here we show that if the variance profile grows too rapidly in relation to the biases, then standard model selection techniques become prone to significant errors. This can happen, for example, in regression problems where the independent variables are drawn from wide-tailed distributions. To counter this, we discuss a new model selection strategy that dramatically outperforms standard complexity-penalization and hold-out meth ods on these hard tasks.
`.
Question: Which category should Paper #192850 be classified as ?
You can select one from ['Neural_Networks', 'Case_Based', 'Theory', 'Reinforcement_Learning', 'Probabilistic_Methods', 'Rule_Learning', 'Genetic_Algorithms'].

This paper should be classified into: Theory