Multi-dimensional classification with super-classes Articles uri icon

authors

  • READ, JESSE MICHAEL
  • BIELZA, CONCHA
  • LARRANAGA, PEDRO

publication date

  • July 2014

start page

  • 1720

end page

  • 1733

issue

  • 7

volume

  • 26

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 1041-4347

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1558-2191

abstract

  • The multi-dimensional classification problem is a generalization of the recently-popularized task of multi-label classification, where each data instance is associated with multiple class variables. There has been relatively little research carried out specific to multi-dimensional classification and, although one of the core goals is similar (modeling dependencies among classes), there are important differences; namely a higher number of possible classifications. In this paper we present method for multi-dimensional classification, drawing from the most relevant multi-label research, and combining it with important novel developments. Using a fast method to model the conditional dependence between class variables, we form super-class partitions and use them to build multi-dimensional learners, learning each super-class as an ordinary class, and thus explicitly modeling class dependencies. Additionally, we present a mechanism to deal with the many class values inherent to super-classes, and thus make learning efficient. To investigate the effectiveness of this approach we carry out an empirical evaluation on a range of multi-dimensional datasets, under different evaluation metrics, and in comparison with high-performing existing multi-dimensional approaches from the literature. Analysis of results shows that our approach offers important performance gains over competing methods, while also exhibiting tractable running time.

keywords

  • multi-dimensional classification; problem transformation