Two-stage hybrid feature selection algorithms for diagnosing erythemato-squamous diseases

This paper proposes two-stage hybrid feature selection algorithms to build the stable and efficient diagnostic models where a new accuracy measure is introduced to assess the models. The two-stage hybrid algorithms adopt Support Vector Machines (SVM) as a classification tool, and the extended Sequential Forward Search (SFS), Sequential Forward Floating Search (SFFS), and Sequential Backward Floating Search (SBFS), respectively, as search strategies, and the generalized F-score (GF) to evaluate the importance of each feature. The new accuracy measure is used as the criterion to evaluated the performance of a temporary SVM to direct the feature selection algorithms. These hybrid methods combine the advantages of filters and wrappers to select the optimal feature subset from the original feature set to build the stable and efficient classifiers. To get the stable, statistical and optimal classifiers, we conduct 10-fold cross validation experiments in the first stage; then we merge the 10 selected feature subsets of the 10-cross validation experiments, respectively, as the new full feature set to do feature selection in the second stage for each algorithm. We repeat the each hybrid feature selection algorithm in the second stage on the one fold that has got the best result in the first stage. Experimental results show that our proposed two-stage hybrid feature selection algorithms can construct efficient diagnostic models which have got better accuracy than that built by the corresponding hybrid feature selection algorithms without the second stage feature selection procedures. Furthermore our methods have got better classification accuracy when compared with the available algorithms for diagnosing erythemato-squamous diseases

An evolutionary approach for balancing effectiveness and representation level in gene selection

As data mining develops and expands to new application areas, feature selection also reveals various aspects to be considered. This paper underlines two aspects that seem to categorize the large body of available feature selection algorithms: the effectiveness and the representation level. The effectiveness deals with selecting the minimum set of variables that maximize the accuracy of a classifier and the representation level concerns discovering how relevant the variables are for the domain of interest. For balancing the above aspects, the paper proposes an evolutionary framework for feature selection that expresses a hybrid method, organized in layers, each of them exploits a specific model of search strategy. Extensive experiments on gene selection from DNA-microarray datasets are presented and discussed. Results indicate that the framework compares well with different hybrid methods proposed in literature as it has the capability of finding well suited subsets of informative features while improving classification accurac

Mining the Web for Lexical Knowledge to Improve Keyphrase Extraction: Learning from Labeled and Unlabeled Data.

A journal article is often accompanied by a list of keyphrases, composed of about five to fifteen important words and phrases that capture the article’s main topics. Keyphrases are useful for a variety of purposes, including summarizing, indexing, labeling, categorizing, clustering, highlighting, browsing, and searching. The task of automatic keyphrase extraction is to select keyphrases from within the text of a given document. Automatic keyphrase extraction makes it feasible to generate keyphrases for the huge number of documents that do not have manually assigned keyphrases. Good performance on this task has been obtained by approaching it as a supervised learning problem. An input document is treated as a set of candidate phrases that must be classified as either keyphrases or non-keyphrases. To classify a candidate phrase as a keyphrase, the most important features (attributes) appear to be the frequency and location of the candidate phrase in the document. Recent work has demonstrated that it is also useful to know the frequency of the candidate phrase as a manually assigned keyphrase for other documents in the same domain as the given document (e.g., the domain of computer science). Unfortunately, this keyphrase-frequency feature is domain-specific (the learning process must be repeated for each new domain) and training-intensive (good performance requires a relatively large number of training documents in the given domain, with manually assigned keyphrases). The aim of the work described here is to remove these limitations. In this paper, I introduce new features that are conceptually related to keyphrase-frequency and I present experiments that show that the new features result in improved keyphrase extraction, although they are neither domain-specific nor training-intensive. The new features are generated by issuing queries to a Web search engine, based on the candidate phrases in the input document. The feature values are calculated from the number of hits for the queries (the number of matching Web pages). In essence, these new features are derived by mining lexical knowledge from a very large collection of unlabeled data, consisting of approximately 350 million Web pages without manually assigned keyphrases

Modeling, forecasting and trading the EUR exchange rates with hybrid rolling genetic algorithms: support vector regression forecast combinations

The motivation of this paper is to introduce a hybrid Rolling Genetic Algorithm-Support Vector Regression (RG-SVR) model for optimal parameter selection and feature subset combination. The algorithm is applied to the task of forecasting and trading the EUR/USD, EUR/GBP and EUR/JPY exchange rates. The proposed methodology genetically searches over a feature space (pool of individual forecasts) and then combines the optimal feature subsets (SVR forecast combinations) for each exchange rate. This is achieved by applying a fitness function specialized for financial purposes and adopting a sliding window approach. The individual forecasts are derived from several linear and non-linear models. RG-SVR is benchmarked against genetically and non-genetically optimized SVRs and SVMs models that are dominating the relevant literature, along with the robust ARBF-PSO neural network. The statistical and trading performance of all models is investigated during the period of 1999–2012. As it turns out, RG-SVR presents the best performance in terms of statistical accuracy and trading efficiency for all the exchange rates under study. This superiority confirms the success of the implemented fitness function and training procedure, while it validates the benefits of the proposed algorithm