Salford Predictive Modeler™ and its component data mining engines CART®, MARS®, TreeNet®, and RandomForests® contain a variety of tools to help modelers work quickly and efficiently. One of the most effective tools for rapid model development is found in the BATTERY tab of the MODEL Set Up dialog. Because there are so many tools embedded in that dialog we are going to start a series of posts going through the principal BATTERY choices, one at a time.

Let’s start with the idea of the BATTERY. The BATTERY mechanism is an automated system for running experiments and trying out different modeling ideas. Instead of you having to think about how you would like to tweak your model to try to make it better the BATTERY does it for you. Each BATTERY is a planned experiment in which we take some useful modeling control and run a series of models in which we systematically change that control. The best part of this is the SUMMARY which provides you with an executive summary of the results and points you to the best performing model. We recommend that you use the BATTERY often; some modelers don’t do anything without setting up pre–packaged or user customized batteries.

Most users of Salford Systems’ data mining tools (CART®, MARS®, TreeNet®, RandomForests® or the more recent integrated SPM™ package) rely on the GUI (Graphical User Interface) to do their work. The GUI makes life easy as you do not need to remember any command syntax and of course the GUI has many useful visual displays of important results. But there are some good reasons to learn how to work with command scripts which is the topic for the current posting. We will refer to our software as SPM (Salford Predictive Modeler) which includes all of our individual data mining engines.

It is useful to remember that almost everything you do during a GUI session using SPM has a “command equivalent.” That means that you could accomplish the identical model and results simply by submitting a set of commands to SPM instead of pointing and clicking. Even more useful to remember is that SPM automatically creates the equivalent set of commands for you as you work, saving the results to a text file. We will return to how to locate that text file a bit later.

SAN DIEGO—A new, free download method of Salford Systems’ data mining software has been designed and implemented, making it easier than ever for data miners to download Salford’s ultra–fast tools with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The new process works like this:

Step 1: Chose the product(s) you are interested in evaluating.
Step 2: Provide your name and contact information.
Step 3: Download!

It’s as easy as that, and Salford Systems couldn’t be happier to finally launch this new method!

Salford Systems Predictive Modeler, including CART®, MARS®, TreeNet®, and RandomForests®, can handle any number of variables you care to work with. By default your software will launch prepared to work with up to 32,768 variables which is sufficient for many users. However, if you need to work with a larger number you just need to let the software know at the time the application is launched.

If you are working with non–GUI version you make use of command line arguments informing the application of your preferences. For example the command line syntax is:

     SPM.EXE    -v< N >      Specifies max N variables for the session.

With the GUI version you essentially do the same adding the command line arguments by modifying the properties of the application.

Just follow the following steps, for example, to inform SPM you expect to work with up to 50,000 variables:

1. Right click on the program group icon and select “Properties.”
2. From the Properties dialog, be sure to select the “Shortcut” tab.

3. From the Shortcut tab, add the parameter “-V50000” to the “Target” path. It should end up looking something like:


The value used for this parameter reflects the number of variables allowed to be used in the application. For example, if you need to use 75,000 variables, then you would need to set this parameter at –V75000.

4. Click the [Apply] button.
5. Click the [OK] to close the shortcut properties dialog.
6. Use your program group icon to start SPM or any other individual Salford Systems’ product.

The SPM™ software must be downloaded with Administrator rights and read/write & modify permissions MUST be applied to the /bin directory PRIOR to proceeding. If you need help with SPM Installation (Administrator Rights & Ensuring Proper Permissions), please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Once the above instructions have been completed, you can now request your Unlock Key.

To unlock the SPM™ software for your 30–day free evaluation, please e–mail the following information to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

1. Last Name, First Name
2. Company Name, Institution or Affiliation
3. Email Address
4. Phone Number
5. System ID (which can be found by pulling down the HELP menu and then looking on the licensing information tab. Please use the Copy Button (to the right) and paste the System ID into the body of the e-mail.)
6. Software application
7. How you heard about Salford Systems

The most recent versions of Salford Predictive Modeler™ SPM PRO EX include a new BATTERY to invoke bootstrapped replication of most model types available in SPM. One of our reasons for adding this BATTERY was to provide access to the full CART engine when generating RandomForests® (RF) models. The principle advantages of this are:

Breiman’s original RF uses a stripped down and simplified tree growing algorithm designed for speed. It lacks tree growing options and missing handling, and fort many users Breiman's RF is confined to classification problems. By accessing the full CART engine with all of its Salford extensions and customized controls, modelers can accomplish far more sophisticated analyses, handle missing values with surrogates, apply penalties and constraints, and most importantly for those interested in continuous dependent variables, BATTERY BOOTSTRAP gives access to both Least Squares (LS) and Least Absolute Deviation (LAD) regression trees.

The principle drawback of BATTERY BOOTSTRAP is that the extra machinery comes with a computational price: RF runs under BATTERY BOOTSTRAP are much slower than under Breiman–RF. The extra robustness, ability to handle huge problems, and added controls should often make the slower runs worthwhile. Also observe that at the moment the RF post–model visualization machinery is not available.

Warning: The following article is ‘geeky.’ It has to be, since it discusses programming techniques (but non–geeks are welcome to continue).

One of the questions our more technically adept users sometimes ask is how to run our applications from an external program written in a language such as Perl, Python, or Microsoft Visual BASIC. While our standard GUI programs do allow this, it is much more conveniently done with the console (command–line or non–GUI) versions which are standard on UNIX and Linux, but are also available for MS Windows. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. Windows GUI applications disable standard input and output, which are the most convenient means of communicating with an external program.
2. Our GUI applications necessarily use more memory and are slower than their non–GUI counterparts (after all, they produce a lot of graphical displays and reports that our console applications do not), and they take much longer to start up.
3. At the present time, our GUI applications do not allow the display to be suppressed, which makes it inconvenient to run them from Windows services.

Use Battery SHAVE in the Salford Predictive Modeler™ to improve your model performance, increase model simplicity, and decrease the number of predictors needed for an accurate model. Using this battery will hep streamline and automate your model for optimal results.

The Salford CART decision tree is exceptional in supporting an essentially unlimited number of target levels. Of course the vast majority of classification problems tackled by analysts have two classes, or are reformulated to have two classes. There is no reason, however, to confine yourself to just two levels if you are working with CART. In our training materials we discuss three–level, five–level, and ten–level examples in detail.  The ten–level example concerns the reverse engineering of a clustering solution, in which a market researcher was looking to extract a simple set of rules that could be used to assign new records to a previously constructed clustering solution based on a very large number of variables. Ten levels is a rather small number when considering how far you might be able to stretch the CART machinery. In our work with a car manufacturer our goal was to predict the specific car model chosen by a new car buyer from a set of more than 400 alternatives.  The analysis was based on survey responses to several hundred attitude and preference questions administered to more than 20,000 new car buyers, and the results yielded extraordinary insight into the needs and wants driving ultimate car model selection. In our own internal testing of CART classification based on synthetic data, we have successfully run CART models on targets with 1,000 levels.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Salford Systems returns to the annual Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Conference (INFORMS) where they will present data mining technology to expert and novice users in a user–friendly approach at the conference’s technology workshop. The workshop will be held on Saturday, Nov. 12, 9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. at the Charlotte Convention Center.