Data mining and image analysis using genetic programming

Abstract

Genetic programming (GP) is an artificial intelligence technique that benefits from evolutionary computations allowing computers to solve problems automatically. In this paper, we present an optimized genetic-programming-based classifier that directly solves the multi-class classification problems in data mining and image analysis. A new fitness function is proposed for multiclass classification and brain tumor detection, which is validated by 10-fold cross validation. Instead of defining static thresholds as boundaries to differentiate between multiple labels, our work presents a method of classification where a GP system learns the relationships among experiential data and models them mathematically during the evolutionary process. We propose an optimized GP classifier based on a combination of pruning subtrees and a new fitness function. An orthogonal least squares algorithm is also applied in the training phase to create a robust GP classifier. Our approach has been assessed on six multiclass datasets and on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain image for tumor detection. The results of data classification for Iris, Wine, Glass, Pima, BUPA Liver and Balance Scale datasets are compared with existing algorithms. The high accuracy of brain tumor classification provided by our GP classifier confirms the strong ability of the developed technique for complicated classification problems. We compared our approach in terms of speed with previous GP algorithms as well. The analyzed results illustrate that the developed classifier produces a productive and rapid method for classification tasks that outperforms the previous methods for more challenging multiclass classification problems.