The use of artificial neural networks and decision trees: Implications for health-care research
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract The use of decision trees and artificial neural networks (ANNs) in health-care research is widespread, as they enable health-care providers with the tools they need to make better medical decisions with their patients. ANNs specifically are extremely helpful in predictive research as they can provide investigators with knowledge about future trends and patterns. However, a major downside to ANNs is their lack of interpretability. Understandability of the model is important as it ensures the outcomes are true to the dataset’s original labels and are not impacted by algorithmic bias. In comparison, decision trees map out their entire process before providing the results, which leads to a higher level of trust in the model and the conclusions it supplies the investigators with. This is essential as many historical datasets lack equal and fair representation of all races and sexes, which might directly correlate to a lesser treatment given to females and individuals in minority groups. Here, we review existing work around the differences and connections between ANNs and decision trees with implications for research in health care.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.037 | 0.157 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".