Decisions supported by machine learning algorithms often have the goal of improving (and thus affecting) an outcome by means of an intervention. Common examples include influencing someone's purchasing behavior with an advertisement or increasing customer retention with a special offer....

This paper addresses focused information acquisition for predictive data mining. Asbusinesses strive to cater to the preferences of individual consumers, they often employpredictive models to customize marketing efforts. Building accurate models requiresinformation about consumer preferences...