Cost-Sensitive Decision Tree with Multiple Resource Constraints

Resource constraints are commonly found in classification tasks. For example, there could be a budget limit on implementation and a deadline for finishing the classification task. Applying the top-down approach for tree induction in this situation may have significant drawbacks. In particular, it is difficult, especially in an early stage of tree induction, to assess an attribute’s contribution to improving the total implementation cost and its impact on attribute selection in later stages because of the deadline constraint. To address this problem, we propose an innovative algorithm, namely, the Cost-Sensitive Associative Tree (CAT) algorithm. Essentially, the algorithm first extracts and retains association classification rules from the training data which satisfy resource constraints, and then uses the rules to construct the final decision tree. The approach has advantages over the traditional top-down approach, first because only feasible classification rules are considered in the tree induction and, second, because their costs and resource use are known. In contrast, in the top-down approach, the information is not available for selecting splitting attributes. The experiment results show that the CAT algorithm significantly outperforms the top-down approach and adapts very well to available resources.Cost-sensitive learning, mining methods and algorithms, decision trees

Fuzzy rule-based system applied to risk estimation of cardiovascular patients

Cardiovascular decision support is one area of increasing research interest. On-going collaborations between clinicians and computer scientists are looking at the application of knowledge discovery in databases to the area of patient diagnosis, based on clinical records. A fuzzy rule-based system for risk estimation of cardiovascular patients is proposed. It uses a group of fuzzy rules as a knowledge representation about data pertaining to cardiovascular patients. Several algorithms for the discovery of an easily readable and understandable group of fuzzy rules are formalized and analysed. The accuracy of risk estimation and the interpretability of fuzzy rules are discussed. Our study shows, in comparison to other algorithms used in knowledge discovery, that classifcation with a group of fuzzy rules is a useful technique for risk estimation of cardiovascular patients. © 2013 Old City Publishing, Inc

A survey on utilization of data mining approaches for dermatological (skin) diseases prediction

Due to recent technology advances, large volumes of medical data is obtained. These data contain valuable information. Therefore data mining techniques can be used to extract useful patterns. This paper is intended to introduce data mining and its various techniques and a survey of the available literature on medical data mining. We emphasize mainly on the application of data mining on skin diseases. A categorization has been provided based on the different data mining techniques. The utility of the various data mining methodologies is highlighted. Generally association mining is suitable for extracting rules. It has been used especially in cancer diagnosis. Classification is a robust method in medical mining. In this paper, we have summarized the different uses of classification in dermatology. It is one of the most important methods for diagnosis of erythemato-squamous diseases. There are different methods like Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms and fuzzy classifiaction in this topic. Clustering is a useful method in medical images mining. The purpose of clustering techniques is to find a structure for the given data by finding similarities between data according to data characteristics. Clustering has some applications in dermatology. Besides introducing different mining methods, we have investigated some challenges which exist in mining skin data

Decision trees and multi-level ensemble classifiers for neurological diagnostics

Cardiac autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is a well known complication of diabetes leading to impaired regulation of blood pressure and heart rate, and increases the risk of cardiac associated mortality of diabetes patients. The neurological diagnostics of CAN progression is an important problem that is being actively investigated. This paper uses data collected as part of a large and unique Diabetes Screening Complications Research Initiative (DiScRi) in Australia with data from numerous tests related to diabetes to classify CAN progression. The present paper is devoted to recent experimental investigations of the effectiveness of applications of decision trees, ensemble classifiers and multi-level ensemble classifiers for neurological diagnostics of CAN. We present the results of experiments comparing the effectiveness of ADTree, J48, NBTree, RandomTree, REPTree and SimpleCart decision tree classifiers. Our results show that SimpleCart was the most effective for the DiScRi data set in classifying CAN. We also investigated and compared the effectiveness of AdaBoost, Bagging, MultiBoost, Stacking, Decorate, Dagging, and Grading, based on Ripple Down Rules as examples of ensemble classifiers. Further, we investigated the effectiveness of these ensemble methods as a function of the base classifiers, and determined that Random Forest performed best as a base classifier, and AdaBoost, Bagging and Decorate achieved the best outcomes as meta-classifiers in this setting. Finally, we investigated the meta-classifiers that performed best in their ability to enhance the performance further within the framework of a multi-level classification paradigm. Experimental results show that the multi-level paradigm performed best when Bagging and Decorate were combined in the construction of a multi-level ensemble classifier

Knowledge-based Systems and Interestingness Measures: Analysis with Clinical Datasets

Knowledge mined from clinical data can be used for medical diagnosis and prognosis. By improving the quality of knowledge base, the efficiency of prediction of a knowledge-based system can be enhanced. Designing accurate and precise clinical decision support systems, which use the mined knowledge, is still a broad area of research. This work analyses the variation in classification accuracy for such knowledge-based systems using different rule lists. The purpose of this work is not to improve the prediction accuracy of a decision support system, but analyze the factors that influence the efficiency and design of the knowledge base in a rule-based decision support system. Three benchmark medical datasets are used. Rules are extracted using a supervised machine learning algorithm (PART). Each rule in the ruleset is validated using nine frequently used rule interestingness measures. After calculating the measure values, the rule lists are used for performance evaluation. Experimental results show variation in classification accuracy for different rule lists. Confidence and Laplace measures yield relatively superior accuracy: 81.188% for heart disease dataset and 78.255% for diabetes dataset. The accuracy of the knowledge-based prediction system is predominantly dependent on the organization of the ruleset. Rule length needs to be considered when deciding the rule ordering. Subset of a rule, or combination of rule elements, may form new rules and sometimes be a member of the rule list. Redundant rules should be eliminated. Prior knowledge about the domain will enable knowledge engineers to design a better knowledge base

ANALYSIS OF CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHMS ON DIFFERENT DATASETS

Purpose. Data mining is the forthcoming research area to solve different problems and classification is one of main problem in the field of data mining. In this paper, we use two classification algorithms J48 and Sequential Minimal Optimization alias SMO of the Weka interface. Methodology. It can be used for testing several datasets. The performance of J48 and Sequential Minimal Optimization has been analyzed to choose the better algorithm based on the conditions of the datasets. The datasets have been chosen from UCI Machine Learning Repository. Findings. Algorithm J48 is based on C4.5 decision-based learning and algorithm Sequential Minimal Optimization uses the Support Vector Machine approach for classification of datasets. When comparing the performance of both algorithms we found Sequential Minimal Optimization is better algorithm in most of the cases. Originality. This is the first implemented research work up to my knowledge, data sets classification problem handled in data mining using SMO with Weka interface

CSNL: A cost-sensitive non-linear decision tree algorithm

This article presents a new decision tree learning algorithm called CSNL that induces Cost-Sensitive Non-Linear decision trees. The algorithm is based on the hypothesis that nonlinear decision nodes provide a better basis than axis-parallel decision nodes and utilizes discriminant analysis to construct nonlinear decision trees that take account of costs of misclassification. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by applying it to seventeen datasets and the results are compared with those obtained by two well known cost-sensitive algorithms, ICET and MetaCost, which generate multiple trees to obtain some of the best results to date. The results show that CSNL performs at least as well, if not better than these algorithms, in more than twelve of the datasets and is considerably faster. The use of bagging with CSNL further enhances its performance showing the significant benefits of using nonlinear decision nodes. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by applying it to seventeen data sets and the results are compared with those obtained by two well known cost-sensitive algorithms, ICET and MetaCost, which generate multiple trees to obtain some of the best results to date. The results show that CSNL performs at least as well, if not better than these algorithms, in more than twelve of the data sets and is considerably faster. The use of bagging with CSNL further enhances its performance showing the significant benefits of using non-linear decision nodes