Cost-sensitive decision trees based on relative waiting time
Zhang Chen · 2007
The paper defines a ‘relative waiting time cost’,and combines it with ‘test cost’ as ‘tangible cost’. Then a principle is presented for selecting splitting attributes,in which those attributes that maximally decrease intangible cost(i.e.,‘misclassification cost’) in an unit of tangible cost,will be firstly selected as splitting attributes. Furthermore,cost-sensitive decision trees with relative waiting time cost is proposed by combining the sequential test strategy with batch test strategy. Experimental results demonstrate that the method outperforms the existing methods not only at the decrease of intangible cost,but also at the quantity of the tangible cost. On the other hand,the results show that it is necessary to consider the relative waiting time cost when building cost-sensitive decision trees.