Computationally efficient induction of classification rules with the PMCRI and J-PMCRI frameworks

In order to gain knowledge from large databases, scalable data mining technologies are needed. Data are captured on a large scale and thus databases are increasing at a fast pace. This leads to the utilisation of parallel computing technologies in order to cope with large amounts of data. In the area of classification rule induction, parallelisation of classification rules has focused on the divide and conquer approach, also known as the Top Down Induction of Decision Trees (TDIDT). An alternative approach to classification rule induction is separate and conquer which has only recently been in the focus of parallelisation. This work introduces and evaluates empirically a framework for the parallel induction of classification rules, generated by members of the Prism family of algorithms. All members of the Prism family of algorithms follow the separate and conquer approach.are increasing at a fast pace. This leads to the utilisation of parallel computing technologies in order to cope with large amounts of data. In the area of classification rule induction, parallelisation of classification rules has focused on the divide and conquer approach, also known as the Top Down Induction of Decision Trees (TDIDT). An alternative approach to classification rule induction is separate and conquer which has only recently been in the focus of parallelisation. This work introduces and evaluates empirically a framework for the parallel induction of classification rules, generated by members of the Prism family of algorithms. All members of the Prism family of algorithms follow the separate and conquer approach

Towards expressive modular rule induction for numerical attributes

The Prism family is an alternative set of predictive data mining algorithms to the more established decision tree data mining algorithms. Prism classifiers are more expressive and user friendly compared with decision trees and achieve a similar accuracy compared with that of decision trees and even outperform decision trees in some cases. This is especially the case where there is noise and clashes in the training data. However, Prism algorithms still tend to overfit on noisy data; this has led to the development of pruning methods which have allowed the Prism algorithms to generalise better over the dataset. The work presented in this paper aims to address the problem of overfitting at rule induction stage for numerical attributes by proposing a new numerical rule term structure based on the Gauss Probability Density Distribution. This new rule term structure is not only expected to lead to a more robust classifier, but also lowers the computational requirements as it needs to induce fewer rule terms

Random Prism: An Alternative to Random Forests.

Ensemble learning techniques generate multiple classifiers, so called base classifiers, whose combined classification results are used in order to increase the overall classification accuracy. In most ensemble classifiers the base classifiers are based on the Top Down Induction of Decision Trees (TDIDT) approach. However, an alternative approach for the induction of rule based classifiers is the Prism family of algorithms. Prism algorithms produce modular classification rules that do not necessarily fit into a decision tree structure. Prism classification rulesets achieve a comparable and sometimes higher classification accuracy compared with decision tree classifiers, if the data is noisy and large. Yet Prism still suffers from overfitting on noisy and large datasets. In practice ensemble techniques tend to reduce the overfitting, however there exists no ensemble learner for modular classification rule inducers such as the Prism family of algorithms. This article describes the first development of an ensemble learner based on the Prism family of algorithms in order to enhance Prism’s classification accuracy by reducing overfitting

Improving modular classification rule induction with G-Prism using dynamic rule term boundaries

Modular classification rule induction for predictive analytics is an alternative and expressive approach to rule induction as opposed to decision tree based classifiers. Prism classifiers achieve a similar classification accuracy compared with decision trees, but tend to overfit less, especially if there is noise in the data. This paper describes the development of a new member of the Prism family, the G-Prism classifier, which improves the classification performance of the classifier. G-Prism is different compared with the remaining members of the Prism family as it follows a different rule term induction strategy. G-Prism’s rule term induction strategy is based on Gauss Probability Density Distribution (GPDD) of target classes rather than simple binary splits (local discretisation). Two versions of G-Prism have been developed, one uses fixed boundaries to build rule terms from GPDD and the other uses dynamic rule term boundaries. Both versions have been compared empirically against Prism on 11 datasets using various evaluation metrics. The results show that in most cases both versions of G-Prism, especially G-Prism with dynamic boundaries, achieve a better classification performance compared with Prism

A rule-based classifier with accurate and fast rule term induction for continuous attributes

Rule-based classifiers are considered more expressive, human readable and less prone to over-fitting compared with decision trees, especially when there is noise in the data. Furthermore, rule-based classifiers do not suffer from the replicated subtree problem as classifiers induced by top down induction of decision trees (also known as `Divide and Conquer'). This research explores some recent developments of a family of rule-based classifiers, the Prism family and more particular G-Prism-FB and G-Prism-DB algorithms, in terms of local discretisation methods used to induce rule terms for continuous data. The paper then proposes a new algorithm of the Prism family based on a combination of Gauss Probability Density Distribution (GPDD), InterQuartile Range (IQR) and data transformation methods. This new rule-based algorithm, termed G-Rules-IQR, is evaluated empirically and outperforms other members of the Prism family in execution time, accuracy and tentative accuracy

Scaling up classification rule induction through parallel processing

The fast increase in the size and number of databases demands data mining approaches that are scalable to large amounts of data. This has led to the exploration of parallel computing technologies in order to perform data mining tasks concurrently using several processors. Parallelization seems to be a natural and cost-effective way to scale up data mining technologies. One of the most important of these data mining technologies is the classification of newly recorded data. This paper surveys advances in parallelization in the field of classification rule induction