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Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks

Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.

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Main Author: Wessels, Zander
Other Authors: Lamont, M. M. C.
Format: Thesis
Language:en_ZA
Published: Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University 2019
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access_status_str Open Access
author Wessels, Zander
author2 Lamont, M. M. C.
author_browse Lamont, M. M. C.
Wessels, Zander
author_facet Lamont, M. M. C.
Wessels, Zander
author_sort Wessels, Zander
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv Stellenbosch University
description Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.
format Thesis
id oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/107202
institution Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
language en_ZA
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:45:46.810Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository
publishDate 2019
publishDateRange 2019
publishDateSort 2019
publisher Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
publisherStr Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
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source_str SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository
spelling oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/107202 Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks Wessels, Zander Lamont, M. M. C. Reid, Stuart Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Statistics and Actuarial Science. Neural networks (Computer science) Deep learning Machine learning -- Decision making Decision trees Prediction (Logic) Generative models Interpretability UCTD Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2019. ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As deep learning methods are becoming the front runner among machine learning techniques, the importance of interpreting and understanding these methods grows. Deep neural networks are known for their highly competitive prediction accuracies, but also infamously for their “black box” properties when it comes to their decision making process. Tree-based models on the other end of the spectrum, are highly interpretable models, but lack the predictive power with certain complex datasets. The proposed solution of this thesis is to combine these two methods and obtain the predictive accuracy from the complex learner, but also the explainability from the interpretable learner. The suggested method is a continuation of the work done by the Google Brain Team in their paper Distilling a Neural Network Into a Soft Decision Tree (Frosst and Hinton, 2017). Frosst and Hinton (2017) argue that the reason why it is difficult to understand how a neural network model comes to a particular decision, is due to the learner being reliant on distributed hierarchical representations. If the knowledge gained by the deep learner were to be transferred to a model based on hierarchical decisions instead, interpretability would be much easier. Their proposed solution is to use a “deep neural network to train a soft decision tree that mimics the input-output function discovered by the neural network”. This thesis tries to expand upon this by using generative models (Goodfellow et al., 2016), in particular VAEs (variational autoencoders), to generate additional data from the training data distribution. This synthetic data can then be labelled by the complex learner we wish to approximate. By artificially growing our training set, we can overcome the statistical inefficiencies of decision trees and improve model accuracy. Masters 2019-11-21T09:24:46Z 2019-12-11T06:52:38Z 2019-11-21T09:24:46Z 2019-12-11T06:52:38Z 2019-12 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/107202 en_ZA Stellenbosch University ix, 93 pages : illustrations application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
spellingShingle Neural networks (Computer science)
Deep learning
Machine learning -- Decision making
Decision trees
Prediction (Logic)
Generative models
Interpretability
UCTD
Wessels, Zander
Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title_full Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title_fullStr Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title_full_unstemmed Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title_short Interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
title_sort interpreting decision boundaries of deep neural networks
topic Neural networks (Computer science)
Deep learning
Machine learning -- Decision making
Decision trees
Prediction (Logic)
Generative models
Interpretability
UCTD
url http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/107202
work_keys_str_mv AT wesselszander interpretingdecisionboundariesofdeepneuralnetworks