abstract = "Although data mining is performed to support decision
making, many of the most powerful techniques, like
neural networks and ensembles, produce opaque models.
This lack of interpretability is an obvious
disadvantage, since decision makers normally require
some sort of explanation before taking action. To
achieve comprehensibility, accuracy is often sacrificed
by the use of simpler, transparent models, such as
decision trees. Another alternative is rule extraction;
i.e. to transform the opaque model into a
comprehensible model, keeping acceptable accuracy. We
have previously suggested a rule extraction algorithm
named G-REX, which is based on genetic programming. One
key property of G-REX, due to the use of genetic
programming, is the possibility to use different
representation languages. In this study we apply G-REX
to estimation tasks. More specifically, three
representation languages are evaluated using eight
publicly available data sets. The quality of the
extracted rules is compared to two standard techniques
producing comprehensible models; multiple linear
regression and the decision tree algorithm C&RT.
The results show that G-REX outperforms the standard
techniques, but that the choice of representation
language is important.",
notes = "CEC 2007 - A joint meeting of the IEEE, the EPS, and
the IET.