{"paper":{"title":"MDA for random forests: inconsistency, and a practical solution via the Sobol-MDA","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.LG"],"primary_cat":"stat.ML","authors_text":"Cl\\'ement B\\'enard (LPSM (UMR\\_8001)), Erwan Scornet (CMAP), S\\'ebastien Da Veiga","submitted_at":"2021-02-26T07:53:39Z","abstract_excerpt":"Variable importance measures are the main tools to analyze the black-box mechanisms of random forests. Although the mean decrease accuracy (MDA) is widely accepted as the most efficient variable importance measure for random forests, little is known about its statistical properties. In fact, the definition of MDA varies across the main random forest software. In this article, our objective is to rigorously analyze the behavior of the main MDA implementations. Consequently, we mathematically formalize the various implemented MDA algorithms, and then establish their limits when the sample size i"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2102.13347","kind":"arxiv","version":3},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2102.13347/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}