This blog covers another interesting machine learning algorithm called Decision Trees and it's mathematical implementation. At every point in our life, we make some decisions to proceed further. Similarly, this machine learning algorithm also makes the same decisions on the dataset provided and figures out the best splitting or decision at each step to improve the accuracy and make better decisions. This, in turn, helps in giving valuable results. A decision tree is a machine learning algorithm which represents a hierarchical division of dataset to form a tree based on certain parameters.

Human beings learn causal models and constantly use them to transfer knowledge between similar environments. We use this intuition to design a transfer-learning framework using object-oriented representations to learn the causal relationships between objects. A learned causal dynamics model can be used to transfer between variants of an environment with exchangeable perceptual features among objects but with the same underlying causal dynamics. We adapt continuous optimization for structure learning techniques to explicitly learn the cause and effects of the actions in an interactive environment and transfer to the target domain by categorization of the objects based on causal knowledge. We demonstrate the advantages of our approach in a gridworld setting by combining causal model-based approach with model-free approach in reinforcement learning.

Ensemble learning is widely applied in Machine Learning (ML) to improve model performance and to mitigate decision risks. In this approach, predictions from a diverse set of learners are combined to obtain a joint decision. Recently, various methods have been explored in literature for estimating decision uncertainties using ensemble learning; however, determining which metrics are a better fit for certain decision-making applications remains a challenging task. In this paper, we study the following key research question in the selection of uncertainty metrics: when does an uncertainty metric outperforms another? We answer this question via a rigorous analysis of two commonly used uncertainty metrics in ensemble learning, namely ensemble mean and ensemble variance. We show that, under mild assumptions on the ensemble learners, ensemble mean is preferable with respect to ensemble variance as an uncertainty metric for decision making.

Background/aims Human grading of digital images from diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening programmes represents a significant challenge, due to the increasing prevalence of diabetes. We evaluate the performance of an automated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to triage retinal images from the English Diabetic Eye Screening Programme (DESP) into test-positive/technical failure versus test-negative, using human grading following a standard national protocol as the reference standard. Methods Retinal images from 30 405 consecutive screening episodes from three English DESPs were manually graded following a standard national protocol and by an automated process with machine learning enabled software, EyeArt v2.1. Screening performance (sensitivity, specificity) and diagnostic accuracy (95% CIs) were determined using human grades as the reference standard. Results Sensitivity (95% CIs) of EyeArt was 95.7% (94.8% to 96.5%) for referable retinopathy (human graded ungradable, referable maculopathy, moderate-to-severe non-proliferative or proliferative). This comprises sensitivities of 98.3% (97.3% to 98.9%) for mild-to-moderate non-proliferative retinopathy with referable maculopathy, 100% (98.7%,100%) for moderate-to-severe non-proliferative retinopathy and 100% (97.9%,100%) for proliferative disease. EyeArt agreed with the human grade of no retinopathy (specificity) in 68% (67% to 69%), with a specificity of 54.0% (53.4% to 54.5%) when combined with non-referable retinopathy. Conclusion The algorithm demonstrated safe levels of sensitivity for high-risk retinopathy in a real-world screening service, with specificity that could halve the workload for human graders. AI machine learning and deep learning algorithms such as this can provide clinically equivalent, rapid detection of retinopathy, particularly in settings where a trained workforce is unavailable or where large-scale and rapid results are needed.

Decision trees are simple to implement and equally easy to interpret. And decision trees are idea for machine learning newcomers as well! If you are unsure about even one of these questions, you've come to the right place! Decision Tree is a powerful machine learning algorithm that also serves as the building block for other widely used and complicated machine learning algorithms like Random Forest, XGBoost, and LightGBM. You can imagine why it's important to learn about this topic!

Intermediate-Severity (IS) faults present milder symptoms compared to severe faults, and are more difficult to detect and diagnose due to their close resemblance to normal operating conditions. The lack of IS fault examples in the training data can pose severe risks to Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) methods that are built upon Machine Learning (ML) techniques, because these faults can be easily mistaken as normal operating conditions. Ensemble models are widely applied in ML and are considered promising methods for detecting out-of-distribution (OOD) data. We identify common pitfalls in these models through extensive experiments with several popular ensemble models on two real-world datasets. Then, we discuss how to design more effective ensemble models for detecting and diagnosing IS faults.

The existence of a security vulnerability in a system does not necessarily mean that it can be exploited. In this research, we introduce Autosploit -- an automated framework for evaluating the exploitability of vulnerabilities. Given a vulnerable environment and relevant exploits, Autosploit will automatically test the exploits on different configurations of the environment in order to identify the specific properties necessary for successful exploitation of the existing vulnerabilities. Since testing all possible system configurations is infeasible, we introduce an efficient approach for testing and searching through all possible configurations of the environment. The efficient testing process implemented by Autosploit is based on two algorithms: generalized binary splitting and Barinel, which are used for noiseless and noisy environments respectively. We implemented the proposed framework and evaluated it using real vulnerabilities. The results show that Autosploit is able to automatically identify the system properties that affect the ability to exploit a vulnerability in both noiseless and noisy environments. These important results can be utilized for more accurate and effective risk assessment.

"All our wisdom is stored in the trees" -- Santosh Kalwar

Machine Learning algorithms have always been on the path towards evolution since its inception. Today the domain has come a long way from mathematical modelling to ensemble modelling and more. This evolution has seen more robust and SOTA models which is almost bridging the gap between potentials capabilities of human and AI. Ensemble modelling has given us one of those SOTA model XGBoost. Recently I happened to participate in a Machine Learning Hiring Challenge where the problem statement was a classification problem.

Everyday use of artificial intelligence for health diagnosis could still be years away, but the field is robust right now. "We still have a lot of unknowns in terms of generalizing and validation of these systems before we can start using them as standard of care," Dr. Matthew Hanna, a pathologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, told United Press International earlier this month. On the one hand, this is not surprising: The history of artificial intelligence (AI) is a history of overcommitment and underdelivery in real-world "production" environments. But on closer inspection, AI is highly useful in medicine as opposed to other domains and will rapidly increase in usage. The UPI article highlights people's desire to see a human doctor and not trusting a machine's subtleties as a principal factor in their choosing a person rather than the AI. Additionally, it points to the additional long-term testing needed before autonomous AI diagnostic systems can be widely installed.