Visual Decision Analysis in Your Spreadsheet Have you ever been faced with a complex, multi-stage decision like what is the best strategy for testing and drilling for oil, or should we build a new plant or buy an existing one? What about bidding on a new project – what should you bid, and how should you react to your opponent’s bid? Or perhaps you are faced with determining the best litigation strategy is in a legal dispute, or the best series of medical tests and procedures to maximize a patient’s chance of recovery? PrecisionTree helps you tackle these types of complex, sequential decisions.

• Machine Learning

INDUCTION OF DECISION TREES 83 1. The diagnosis of a medical condition from symptoms, in which the classes could be either the various disease states. Differential Diagnosis by the Trees. Decision Tree for Poor. Differential diagnosis is at the heart of every initial clinical encounter and.

With PrecisionTree, you can visually map out, organize, and analyze decisions using decision trees, right in Microsoft Excel. Decision trees are quantitative diagrams with nodes and branches representing different possible decision paths and chance events. This helps you identify and calculate the value of all possible alternatives, so you can choose the best option with confidence.

PrecisionTree has also been fully translated into, and. New in Version 7 – View and Share Decision Trees in BigPicture » Palisade’s BigPicture is the mind mapping and data exploration add-in now included with the DecisionTools Suite. Offering unparalleled visual diagramming and reporting capabilities, BigPicture is becoming widely used for analyzing, discussing, and sharing information about complex decisions. PrecisionTree now has the ability to export quantitative decision tree models directly to BigPicture, turning them into stunning visual maps that can be shared with any Excel user for presentation and discussion. With this capability, collaborative decision-making just got much easier, bridging the gap between quantitative probabilistic analysis and expert knowledge. How PrecisionTree Works Build a Decision Tree Decision trees provide a formal structure in which decisions and chance events are linked in sequence from left to right.

Machine Learning

Decisions, chance events, and end results are represented by nodes and connected by branches. The result is a tree structure with the 'root' on the left and various payoffs on the right. Probabilities of events occurring and payoffs for events and decisions are added to each node in the tree.

With PrecisionTree, you’ll see the payoff and probability of each possible path through a tree. PrecisionTree functions may be added to any cell in a spreadsheet and can include arguments that are cell references and expressions - allowing great flexibility in defining decision models. You can also collapse and restore branches to the right of any given node for simplicity and easier navigation through the tree, and insert nodes at any point in a tree. You can even append symmetric subtrees to particular nodes, greatly speeding up the building of large models.

Analyze Your Results PrecisionTree determines the best decision to make at each decision node and marks the branch for that decision TRUE. Once your decision tree is complete, PrecisionTree’s decision analysis creates a full statistics report on the best decision to make and its comparison with alternative decisions. PrecisionTree can create a Risk Profile graph that compares the payoffs and risk of different decision options. It displays probability and cumulative charts showing the probabilities of different outcomes and of an outcome less than or equal to a certain value. Advanced Features Bayesian Revision – This lets you to “flip” one or more chance nodes in a model in order to show probabilities calculated using Bayes’ Rule. This is valuable when the probabilities of a model are not available in a directly useful form.

For example, you may need to know the probability of an outcome occurring given the results of a particular test. The test’s accuracy may be known, but the only way to determine the probability you seek is to “reverse” a traditional tree using Bayes Rule. Logic nodes – A special type of node where the optimum branch is selected according to conditions the user defines. A logic node behaves like a decision node, but it selects the branch whose branch logic formula evaluates to TRUE as the logical (optimum) decision. Reference nodes – Are used to reference a sub-tree.

The sub-tree can be on any sheet in the workbook. Use reference nodes to simplify a tree, to reference the same sub-tree many times in a tree, or to build a tree that’s too large to fit on one spreadsheet. Linked Trees – Allow the branch values for a decision tree to be linked to cells in an Excel model external to the tree. Each node can be linked to an Excel cell reference or range name. End node payoffs can be calculated by a detailed spreadsheet model. This powerful feature combines the strength of a decision tree for describing decision situations with the strength of a traditional spreadsheet model for calculating results.

Payoffs with VBA Macros – PrecisionTree can calculate decision tree path payoff values using a custom VBA formula. Using this method, you can drastically simplify your models. Custom Utility Functions – Converts a model’s monetary payoffs into “utility” to account for the decision maker’s attitude toward risk, which can affect the optimal decision choice. PrecisionTree offers a default exponential utility function, but, using VBA custom functions, you can easily construct your own custom utility function. PrecisonTree Developer Kit – Built-in programming language that allows you to automate PrecisionTree using Excel VBA. Influence Diagrams – Using nodes and arcs, influence diagrams are used to summarize the general structure of a decision.

They can also represent asymmetric trees. You can convert influence diagrams into decision trees. PrecisionTree and TopRank PrecisionTree models can also be run with TopRank to identify the most critical factors in larger, more complex tree models. TopRank performs sensitivity analysis on your tree. » Save Over 50% When You Buy the Suite When you buy the DecisionTools Suite, you save over 50% versus buying all components individually.

The best analyses at a great price–with the DecisionTools Suite. » Licensing and Training PrecisionTree is available through a variety of licensing options, including corporate, network, and academic licenses. Training, consulting, and books can be bundled with your software to ensure you and your staff get the most out of your investment.