Evaluation of importance for condition attributes based on quality of decision reducts

Abstract

Relative or decision reducts belong with mechanisms dedicated to feature selection, and they are embedded in rough set approach to data processing. Algorithms for reduct construction typically aim at dimensionality reduction aspect, searching for smallest reducts, which are considered as the most advantageous from the point of view of knowledge representation. However, classifiers build on reduced data models, based on reducts, can significantly vary in performance. Therefore, to ensure quality of predictions, other characteristics of reducts, apart from their cardinalities, need to be taken into account. The paper presents research in which estimation of reduct quality through their characteristics was reflected in calculation of the proposed weighting factors leading to attribute rankings. These rankings were next employed in the process of filtering decision rules, inferred by classic rough set approach. Constructed rule-based classifiers were applied in the stylometric domain to solve a task of authorship attribution.