In the feature subset selection problem, a learning algorithm is faced with the problem of selecting a relevant subset of features upon which to focus its attention, while ignoring the rest. To achieve the best possible performance with a particular learning algorithm on a particular training set, a feature subset selection method should consider how the algorithm and the training set interact. We explore the relation between optimal feature subset selection and relevance. Our wrapper method searches for an optimal feature subset tailored to a particular algorithm and a domain. We study the strengths and weaknesses of the wrapper approach and show a series of improved designs. We compare the wrapper approach to induction without feature subset selection and to Relief, a filter approach to feature subset selection. Significant improvement in accuracy is achieved for some datasets for the two families of induction algorithms used: decision trees and

We address the problem of finding a subset of features that allows a supervised induction algorithm to induce small high-accuracy concepts. We examine notions of relevance and irrelevance, and show that the definitions used in the machine learning literature do not adequately partition the features into useful categories of relevance. We present definitions for irrelevance and for two degrees of relevance. These definitions improve our understanding of the behavior of previous subset selection algorithms, and help define the subset of features that should be sought. The features selected should depend not only on the features and the target concept, but also on the induction algorithm. We describe a method for feature subset selection using cross-validation that is applicable to any induction algorithm, and discuss experiments conducted with ID3 and C4.5 on artificial and real datasets.

We study the question of determining whether an unknown function has a particular property or is ffl-far from any function with that property. A property testing algorithm is given a sample of the value of the function on instances drawn according to some distribution, and possibly may query the function on instances of its choice. First, we establish some connections between property testing and problems in learning theory. Next, we focus on testing graph properties, and devise algorithms to test whether a graph has properties such as being k-colorable or having a ae-clique (clique of density ae w.r.t the vertex set). Our graph property testing algorithms are probabilistic and make assertions which are correct with high probability, utilizing only poly(1=ffl) edge-queries into the graph, where ffl is the distance parameter. Moreover, the property testing algorithms can be used to efficiently (i.e., in time linear in the number of vertices) construct partitions of the graph which corre...

Ensemble methods are learning algorithms that construct a set of classifiers and then classify new data points by taking a (weighted) vote of their predictions. The original ensemble method is Bayesian averaging, but more recent algorithms include error-correcting output coding, Bagging, and boosting. This paper reviews these methods and explains why ensembles can often perform better than any single classifier. Some previous studies comparing ensemble methods are reviewed, and some new experiments are presented to uncover the reasons that Adaboost does not overfit rapidly.

Abstract. Active learning differs from "learning from examples " in that the learning algorithm assumes at least some control over what part of the input domain it receives information about. In some situations, active learning is provably more powerful than learning from examples alone, giving better generalization for a fixed number of training examples. In this article, we consider the problem of learning a binary concept in the absence of noise. We describe a formalism for active concept learning called selective sampling and show how it may be approximately implemented by a neural network. In selective sampling, a learner receives distribution information from the environment and queries an oracle on parts of the domain it considers "useful. " We test our implementation, called an SGnetwork, on three domains and observe significant improvement in generalization.

In this paper we prove the intractability of learning several classes of Boolean functions in the distribution-free model (also called the Probably Approximately Correct or PAC model) of learning from examples. These results are representation independent, in that they hold regardless of the syntactic form in which the learner chooses to represent its hypotheses. Our methods reduce the problems of cracking a number of well-known public-key cryptosystems to the learning problems. We prove that a polynomial-time learning algorithm for Boolean formulae, deterministic finite automata or constant-depth threshold circuits would have dramatic consequences for cryptography and number theory: in particular, such an algorithm could be used to break the RSA cryptosystem, factor Blum integers (composite numbers equivalent to 3 modulo 4), and detect quadratic residues. The results hold even if the learning algorithm is only required to obtain a slight advantage in prediction over random guessing. The techniques used demonstrate an interesting duality between learning and cryptography. We also apply our results to obtain strong intractability results for approximating a generalization of graph coloring.

This article describes a new system for induction of oblique decision trees. This system, OC1, combines deterministic hill-climbing with two forms of randomization to find a good oblique split (in the form of a hyperplane) at each node of a decision tree. Oblique decision tree methods are tuned especially for domains in which the attributes are numeric, although they can be adapted to symbolic or mixed symbolic/numeric attributes. We present extensive empirical studies, using both real and artificial data, that analyze OC1's ability to construct oblique trees that are smaller and more accurate than their axis-parallel counterparts. We also examine the benefits of randomization for the construction of oblique decision trees. 1. Introduction Current data collection technology provides a unique challenge and opportunity for automated machine learning techniques. The advent of major scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the human brain mappi...

Neural networks, despite their empirically-proven abilities, have been little used for the refinement of existing knowledge because this task requires a three-step process. First, knowledge in some form must be inserted into a neural network. Second, the network must be refined. Third, knowledge must be extracted from the network. We have previously described a method for the first step of this process. Standard neural learning techniques can accomplish the second step. In this paper, we propose and empirically evaluate a method for the final, and possibly most difficult, step. This method efficiently extracts symbolic rules from trained neural networks. The four major results of empirical tests of this method are that the extracted rules: (1) closely reproduce (and can even exceed) the accuracy of the network from which they are extracted; (2) are superior to the rules produced by methods that directly refine symbolic rules; (3) are superior to those produced by previous techniques fo...

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Decision trees have proved to be valuable tools for the description, classification and generalization of data. Work on constructing decision trees from data exists in multiple disciplines such as statistics, pattern recognition, decision theory, signal processing, machine learning and artificial neural networks. Researchers in these disciplines, sometimes working on quite different problems, identified similar issues and heuristics for decision tree construction. This paper surveys existing work on decision tree construction, attempting to identify the important issues involved, directions the work has taken and the current state of the art. Keywords: classification, tree-structured classifiers, data compaction 1. Introduction Advances in data collection methods, storage and processing technology are providing a unique challenge and opportunity for automated data exploration techniques. Enormous amounts of data are being collected daily from major scientific projects e.g., Human Genome...