rfcfit

A Random Forest Regressor. Random Forest is an estimator that fits number of regression decision trees on various sub-samples of the dataset and uses averaging to improve predictive accuracy and control over fitting.

Attention: Available only with Activate commercial edition.

Syntax

parameters = rfcfit(X,y)

parameters = rfcfit(X,y,options)

Inputs

X
Training data.
Type: double
Dimension: vector | matrix
y
Target values.
Type: double
Dimension: vector | matrix
options
Type: struct
n_estimators
The number of trees in the forest (default: 100).
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar
criterion
Function to measure quality of a split. 'gini' for Gini Impurity (default) and 'entropy' for Information Gain.
Type: char
Dimension: string
max_depth
The maximum depth of the tree. If not assigned, the nodes are expanded until all leaves are pure or until all leaves contain less than min_samples_split.
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar
min_samples_split
The minimum number of samples required to split an internal node (default: 2). If integer, consider it as the minimum number; if float, (min_samples_split * number of samples) is taken as the minimum number of samples for each split.
Type: double | integer
Dimension: scalar
min_samples_leaf
The minimum number of samples required to be at a leaf node (default: 1). If number of samples are less than min_samples_leaf at any node, tree is not built further under that node. If integer, consider it as the minimum number; if float, (min_samples_leaf * number of samples) is taken as the minimum number of samples for each node.
Type: double | integer
Dimension: scalar
min_weight_fraction_leaf
The minimum weighted fraction of the sum total of weights (of all the input samples) required to be at a leaf node (default: 0).
Type: double
Dimension: scalar
max_features
The number of features to consider when looking for the best split (default: number of features in training data). If integer: at each split, consider max_features; if float: At each split, consider floor(max_features * n_features).
Type: double | integer
Dimension: scalar
max_leaf_nodes
Grow trees with max_leaf_nodes in best-first fashion. Best nodes are defined by its reduction in impurity. If not assigned, then trees have possible number of leaf nodes.
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar
min_impurity_decrease
A node will be split if this split reduces the impurity >= this value (default: 0).
Type: double
Dimension: scalar
bootstrap
Whether bootstrap samples are used when building trees. If false, the whole dataset is used to build each tree (default: true).
Type: Boolean
Dimension: logical
oob_score
Whether to use out-of-bag samples to estimate the generalization accuracy (default: false).
Type: Boolean
Dimension: logical
random_state
Controls the randomness of the model. random_state is the seed used by the random number generator.
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar

Outputs

parameters
Contains all the values passed to rfcfit method as options. Additionally it has below key-value pairs.
Type: struct
scorer
Function handle pointing to 'accuracy' function.
Type: function handle
oob_score
Score of the training dataset obtained using an out-of-bag estimate. It is set only when oob_score = true in options.
Type: double
Dimension: scalar
classes
The class labels (single output problem), or a matrix of class labels (multi-output problem).
Type: double
Dimension: vector | matrix
n_samples
Number of rows in the training data.
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar
n_features
Number of columns in the training data.
Type: integer
Dimension: scalar

Example

Usage of rfcfit

data = dlmread(‘iris.csv', ',', 1);
X = data(:,1:end-1);
y = data(:,end);

parameters = rfcfit(X, y, options);
> parameters
parameters = struct [
  bootstrap: 1
  classes: [Matrix] 1 x 3
  0  1  2
  criterion: gini
  min_impurity_decrease: 0
  min_samples_leaf: 1
  min_samples_split: 2
  min_weight_fraction_leaf: 0
  n_estimators: 100
  n_features: 4
  n_samples: 150
  oob_score: oob_score not set to true while training
]

Comments

The sub-sample size is always the same as original input size but samples are drawn with replacement if bootstrap is set to true (default). If parameters like max_depth, min_samples_leaf are unassigned (default values are chosen), it leads to fully grown, unpruned trees which can be very large on some datasets. To reduce memory consumption, the complexity and size of the trees should be controlled by setting those parameter values. The features are always randomly permuted at each split. Even when max_features = number of features in dataset and bootstrap = false, the best found split may vary. random_state has to be fixed to obtain a deterministic behaviour. Output 'parameters' should be passed as input to rfcpredict function.