Henrik Linusson

Regression conformal prediction with random forests

Regression conformal prediction produces prediction intervals that are valid, i.e., the probability of excluding the correct target value is bounded by a predefined confidence level. The most important criterion when comparing conformal regressors is efficiency; the prediction intervals should be as tight (informative) as possible. In this study, the use of random forests as the underlying model for regression conformal prediction is investigated and compared to existing state-of-the-art techniques, which are based on neural networks and k-nearest neighbors. In addition to their robust predictive performance, random forests allow for determining the size of the prediction intervals by using out-of-bag estimates instead of requiring a separate calibration set. An extensive empirical investigation, using 33 publicly available data sets, was undertaken to compare the use of random forests to existing state-of-the-art conformal predictors. The results show that the suggested approach, on almost all confidence levels and using both standard and normalized nonconformity functions, produced significantly more efficient conformal predictors than the existing alternatives.

Bias reduction through conditional conformal prediction

Conformal prediction (CP) is a relatively new framework in which predictive models output sets of predictions with a bound on the error rate, i.e., the probability of making an erroneous prediction ...

Regression trees for streaming data with local performance guarantees

Online predictive modeling of streaming data is a key task for big data analytics. In this paper, a novel approach for efficient online learning of regression trees is proposed, which continuously updates, rather than retrains, the tree as more labeled data become available. A conformal predictor outputs prediction sets instead of point predictions; which for regression translates into prediction intervals. The key property of a conformal predictor is that it is always valid, i.e., the error rate, on novel data, is bounded by a preset significance level. Here, we suggest applying Mondrian conformal prediction on top of the resulting models, in order to obtain regression trees where not only the tree, but also each and every rule, corresponding to a path from the root node to a leaf, is valid. Using Mondrian conformal prediction, it becomes possible to analyze and explore the different rules separately, knowing that their accuracy, in the long run, will not be below the preset significance level. An empirical investigation, using 17 publicly available data sets, confirms that the resulting rules are independently valid, but also shows that the prediction intervals are smaller, on average, than when only the global model is required to be valid. All-in-all, the suggested method provides a data miner or a decision maker with highly informative predictive models of streaming data.

Efficiency Comparison of Unstable Transductive and Inductive Conformal Classifiers

In the conformal prediction literature, it appears axiomatic that transductive conformal classifiers possess a higher predictive efficiency than inductive conformal classifiers, however, this depends on whether or not the nonconformity function tends to overfit misclassified test examples. With the conformal prediction framework’s increasing popularity, it thus becomes necessary to clarify the settings in which this claim holds true. In this paper, the efficiency of transductive conformal classifiers based on decision tree, random forest and support vector machine classification models is compared to the efficiency of corresponding inductive conformal classifiers. The results show that the efficiency of conformal classifiers based on standard decision trees or random forests is substantially improved when used in the inductive mode, while conformal classifiers based on support vector machines are more efficient in the transductive mode. In addition, an analysis is presented that discusses the effects of calibration set size on inductive conformal classifier efficiency.

Accelerating difficulty estimation for conformal regression forests

The conformal prediction framework allows for specifying the probability of making incorrect predictions by a user-provided confidence level. In addition to a learning algorithm, the framework requires a real-valued function, called nonconformity measure, to be specified. The nonconformity measure does not affect the error rate, but the resulting efficiency, i.e., the size of output prediction regions, may vary substantially. A recent large-scale empirical evaluation of conformal regression approaches showed that using random forests as the learning algorithm together with a nonconformity measure based on out-of-bag errors normalized using a nearest-neighbor-based difficulty estimate, resulted in state-of-the-art performance with respect to efficiency. However, the nearest-neighbor procedure incurs a significant computational cost. In this study, a more straightforward nonconformity measure is investigated, where the difficulty estimate employed for normalization is based on the variance of the predictions made by the trees in a forest. A large-scale empirical evaluation is presented, showing that both the nearest-neighbor-based and the variance-based measures significantly outperform a standard (non-normalized) nonconformity measure, while no significant difference in efficiency between the two normalized approaches is observed. The evaluation moreover shows that the computational cost of the variance-based measure is several orders of magnitude lower than when employing the nearest-neighbor-based nonconformity measure. The use of out-of-bag instances for calibration does, however, result in nonconformity scores that are distributed differently from those obtained from test instances, questioning the validity of the approach. An adjustment of the variance-based measure is presented, which is shown to be valid and also to have a significant positive effect on the efficiency. For conformal regression forests, the variance-based nonconformity measure is hence a computationally efficient and theoretically well-founded alternative to the nearest-neighbor procedure.

Evaluation of a Variance-Based Nonconformity Measure for Regression Forests

In a previous large-scale empirical evaluation of conformal regression approaches, random forests using out-of-bag instances for calibration together with a k-nearest neighbor-based nonconformity measure, was shown to obtain state-of-the-art performance with respect to efficiency, i.e., average size of prediction regions. However, the use of the nearest-neighbor procedure not only requires that all training data have to be retained in conjunction with the underlying model, but also that a significant computational overhead is incurred, during both training and testing. In this study, a more straightforward nonconformity measure is investigated, where the difficulty estimate employed for normalization is based on the variance of the predictions made by the trees in a forest. A large-scale empirical evaluation is presented, showing that both the nearest-neighbor-based and the variance-based measures significantly outperform a standard non-normalized nonconformity measure, while no significant difference in efficiency between the two normalized approaches is observed. Moreover, the evaluation shows that state-of-the-art performance is achieved by the variance-based measure at a computational cost that is several orders of magnitude lower than when employing the nearest-neighbor-based nonconformity measure.

Reliable Confidence Predictions Using Conformal Prediction

Conformal classiers output condence prediction regions, i.e., multi-valued predictions that are guaranteed to contain the true output value of each test pattern with some predened probability. In o ...

Handling Small Calibration Sets in Mondrian Inductive Conformal Regressors

In inductive conformal prediction, calibration sets must contain an adequate number of instances to support the chosen confidence level. This problem is particularly prevalent when using Mondrian inductive conformal prediction, where the input space is partitioned into independently valid prediction regions. In this study, Mondrian conformal regressors, in the form of regression trees, are used to investigate two problematic aspects of small calibration sets. If there are too few calibration instances to support the significance level, we suggest using either extrapolation or altering the model. In situations where the desired significance level is between two calibration instances, the standard procedure is to choose the more nonconforming one, thus guaranteeing validity, but producing conservative conformal predictors. The suggested solution is to use interpolation between calibration instances. All proposed techniques are empirically evaluated and compared to the standard approach on 30 benchmark data sets. The results show that while extrapolation often results in invalid models, interpolation works extremely well and provides increased efficiency with preserved empirical validity.

Signed-Error Conformal Regression

This paper suggets a modification of the Conformal Prediction framework for regression that will strenghten the associated guarantee of validity. We motivate the need for this modification and argue that our conformal regressors are more closely tied to the actual error distribution of the underlying model, thus allowing for more natural interpretations of the prediction intervals. In the experimentation, we provide an empirical comparison of our conformal regressors to traditional conformal regressors and show that the proposed modification results in more robust two-tailed predictions, and more efficient one-tailed predictions.

Classification with Reject Option Using Conformal Prediction

In this paper, we propose a practically useful means of interpreting the predictions produced by a conformal classifier. The proposed interpretation leads to a classifier with a reject option, that allows the user to limit the number of erroneous predictions made on the test set, without any need to reveal the true labels of the test objects. The method described in this paper works by estimating the cumulative error count on a set of predictions provided by a conformal classifier, ordered by their confidence. Given a test set and a user-specified parameter k, the proposed classification procedure outputs the largest possible amount of predictions containing on average at most k errors, while refusing to make predictions for test objects where it is too uncertain. We conduct an empirical evaluation using benchmark datasets, and show that we are able to provide accurate estimates for the error rate on the test set.