The random forest algorithm for statistical learning

Random forests (Breiman, 2001, Machine Learning 45: 5-32) is a statistical- or machine-learning algorithm for prediction. In this article, we introduce a corresponding new command, rforest. We overview the random forest algorithm and illustrate its use with two examples: The first example is a classification problem that predicts whether a credit card holder will default on his or her debt. The second example is a regression problem that predicts the logscaled number of shares of online news articles. We conclude with a discussion that summarizes key points demonstrated in the examples.