Title: Forward tentative selection with backward propagation of selection decision algorithm for attribute reduction in rough set theory

Authors: Srilatha Chebrolu; Sriram G. Sanjeevi

Addresses: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology Warangal, Warangal, India ' Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Technology Warangal, Warangal, India

Abstract: In rough set theory, attribute reduction is an important application. Many approaches to attribute reduction were developed using rough set theory. These approaches used various greedy heuristics to find a reduct approximation. In this paper, we propose forward tentative selection with backward propagation of selection decision (FTSBPSD) algorithm to find a reduct. The proposed algorithm is based on the principle of indiscernibility of rough set theory. It finds one of the prime implicants of the discernibility function as the reduct. The proposed algorithm works for various types of reducts, defined in the rough set theory. In this work, we have analysed the performance of distribution reduct, maximum distribution reduct, positive region reduct and possible reduct. The proposed algorithm was tested on various datasets found in University of California, machine learning repository. It has given good results for classification accuracy during tests performed on the datasets. Experimental results obtained by FTSBPSD algorithm have been found to give better classification accuracy when tested using C4.5 classifier in comparison to the results obtained by the Q-MDRA algorithm described in the literature.

Keywords: attribute reduction; Boolean reasoning; discernibility graph; rough set theory; RST; rough sets; forward tentative selection; backward propagation; selection decision.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRIS.2015.072950

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, 2015 Vol.7 No.3/4, pp.221 - 243

Received: 01 Dec 2014
Accepted: 14 May 2015

Published online: 09 Nov 2015 *

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