An intelligent system for risk classification of stock investment projects

The proposed paper demonstrates that a hybrid fuzzy neural network can serve as a risk classifier of stock investment projects. The training algorithm for the regular part of the network is based on bidirectional incremental evolution proving more efficient than direct evolution. The approach is compared with other crisp and soft investment appraisal and trading techniques, while building a multimodel domain representation for an intelligent decision support system. Thus the advantages of each model are utilised while looking at the investment problem from different perspectives. The empirical results are based on UK companies traded on the London Stock Exchange

A kernel-based framework for learning graded relations from data

Driven by a large number of potential applications in areas like bioinformatics, information retrieval and social network analysis, the problem setting of inferring relations between pairs of data objects has recently been investigated quite intensively in the machine learning community. To this end, current approaches typically consider datasets containing crisp relations, so that standard classification methods can be adopted. However, relations between objects like similarities and preferences are often expressed in a graded manner in real-world applications. A general kernel-based framework for learning relations from data is introduced here. It extends existing approaches because both crisp and graded relations are considered, and it unifies existing approaches because different types of graded relations can be modeled, including symmetric and reciprocal relations. This framework establishes important links between recent developments in fuzzy set theory and machine learning. Its usefulness is demonstrated through various experiments on synthetic and real-world data.Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

Building Credit-Risk Evaluation Expert Systems Using Neural Network Rule Extraction and Decision Tables.

In this paper, we evaluate and contrast four neural network rule extraction approaches for credit scoring. Experiments are carried out on three real life credit scoring data sets. Both the continuous and the discretised versions of all data sets are analysed. The rule extraction algorithms, Neurolinear, Neurorule, Trepan and Nefclass, have different characteristics with respect to their perception of the neural network and their way of representing the generated rules or knowledge. It is shown that Neurolinear, Neurorule and Trepan are able to extract very concise rule sets or trees with a high predictive accuracy when compared to classical decision tree (rule) induction algorithms like C4.5(rules). Especially Neurorule extracted easy to understand and powerful propositional ifthen rules for all discretised data sets. Hence, the Neurorule algorithm may offer a viable alternative for rule generation and knowledge discovery in the domain of credit scoring.Credit; Information systems; International; Systems;

Decision Making in the Medical Domain: Comparing the Effectiveness of GP-Generated Fuzzy Intelligent Structures

ABSTRACT: In this work, we examine the effectiveness of two intelligent models in medical domains. Namely, we apply grammar-guided genetic programming to produce fuzzy intelligent structures, such as fuzzy rule-based systems and fuzzy Petri nets, in medical data mining tasks. First, we use two context-free grammars to describe fuzzy rule-based systems and fuzzy Petri nets with genetic programming. Then, we apply cellular encoding in order to express the fuzzy Petri nets with arbitrary size and topology. The models are examined thoroughly in four real-world medical data sets. Results are presented in detail and the competitive advantages and drawbacks of the selected methodologies are discussed, in respect to the nature of each application domain. Conclusions are drawn on the effectiveness and efficiency of the presented approach

Spectral Pattern Recognition and Fuzzy Artmap Classification: Design Features, System Dynamics and Real World Simulation

Classification of terrain cover from satellite radar imagery represents an area of considerable current interest and research. Most satellite sensors used for land applications are of the imaging type. They record data in a variety of spectral channels and at a variety of ground resolutions. Spectral pattern recognition refers to classification procedures utilizing pixel-by-pixel spectral information as the basis for automated land cover classification. A number of methods have been developed in the past to classify pixels [resolution cells] from multispectral imagery to a priori given land cover categories. Their ability to provide land cover information with high classification accuracies is significant for work where accurate and reliable thematic information is needed. The current trend towards the use of more spectral bands on satellite instruments, such as visible and infrared imaging spectrometers, and finer pixel and grey level resolutions will offer more precise possibilities for accurate identification. But as the complexity of the data grows, so too does the need for more powerful tools to analyse them. It is the major objective of this study to analyse the capabilities and applicability of the neural pattern recognition system, called fuzzy ARTMAP, to generate high quality classifications of urban land cover using remotely sensed images. Fuzzy ARTMAP synthesizes fuzzy logic and Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) by exploiting the formal similarity between the computations of fuzzy subsethood and the dynamics of category choice, search and learning. The paper describes design features, system dynamics and simulation algorithms of this learning system, which is trained and tested for classification (8 a priori given classes) of a multispectral image of a Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper scene (270 x 360 pixels) from the City of Vienna on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Fuzzy ARTMAP performance is compared with that of an error-based learning system based upon the multi-layer perceptron, and the Gaussian maximum likelihood classifier as conventional statistical benchmark on the same database. Both neural classifiers outperform the conventional classifier in terms of classification accuracy. Fuzzy ARTMAP leads to out-of-sample classification accuracies, very close to maximum performance, while the multi-layer perceptron--like the conventional classifier--shows difficulties to distinguish between some land use categories

Rough feature selection for intelligent classifiers

Abstract. The last two decades have seen many powerful classification systems being built for large-scale real-world applications. However, for all their accuracy, one of the persistent obstacles facing these systems is that of data dimensionality. To enable such systems to be effective, a redundancy-removing step is usually required to pre-process the given data. Rough set theory offers a useful, and formal, methodology that can be employed to reduce the dimensionality of datasets. It helps select the most information rich features in a dataset, without transforming the data, all the while attempting to minimise information loss during the selection process. Based on this observation, this paper discusses an approach for semantics-preserving dimensionality reduction, or feature selection, that simplifies domains to aid in developing fuzzy or neural classifiers. Computationally, the approach is highly efficient, relying on simple set operations only. The success of this work is illustrated by applying it to addressing two real-world problems: industrial plant monitoring and medical image analysis.

An Effective Multi-Resolution Hierarchical Granular Representation based Classifier using General Fuzzy Min-Max Neural Network

IEEE Motivated by the practical demands for simplification of data towards being consistent with human thinking and problem solving as well as tolerance of uncertainty, information granules are becoming important entities in data processing at different levels of data abstraction. This paper proposes a method to construct classifiers from multi-resolution hierarchical granular representations (MRHGRC) using hyperbox fuzzy sets. The proposed approach forms a series of granular inferences hierarchically through many levels of abstraction. An attractive characteristic of our classifier is that it can maintain a high accuracy in comparison to other fuzzy min-max models at a low degree of granularity based on reusing the knowledge learned from lower levels of abstraction. In addition, our approach can reduce the data size significantly as well as handle the uncertainty and incompleteness associated with data in real-world applications. The construction process of the classifier consists of two phases. The first phase is to formulate the model at the greatest level of granularity, while the later stage aims to reduce the complexity of the constructed model and deduce it from data at higher abstraction levels. Experimental analyses conducted comprehensively on both synthetic and real datasets indicated the efficiency of our method in terms of training time and predictive performance in comparison to other types of fuzzy min-max neural networks and common machine learning algorithms