A comparison of stacking with MDTs to bagging, boosting, and other stacking methods

Abstract

In this paper, we present an integration of the algorithm MLC4.5 for learning meta decision trees (MDTs) into the Weka data mining suite. MDTs are a method for combining multiple classifiers. Instead of giving a prediction, MDT leaves specify which classifier should be used to obtain a prediction. The algorithm is based on the C4.5 algorithm for learning ordinary decision trees. An extensive performance evaluation of stacking with MDTs on twenty-one data sets has been performed. We combine base-level classifiers generated by three learning algorithms: an algorithm for learning decision trees, a nearest neighbor algorithm and a naive Bayes algorithm. We compare MDTs to bagged and boosted decision trees, and to combined classifiers with voting and three different stacking methods: with ordinary decision trees, with naive Bayes algorithm and with multi-response linear regression as a meta-level classifier. In terms of performance, stacking with MDTs gives better results than other methods except when compared to stacking with multi-response linear regression as a meta-level classifier; the latter is slightly better than MDTs.

Publication
International Workshop on Integrating Aspects of Data Mining, Decision Support and Meta-Learning