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Classification

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Encyclopedia of Machine Learning and Data Mining

Synonyms

Categorization; Generalization; Identification; Induction; Recognition

Definition

In common usage, the word classification means to put things into categories, group them together in some useful way. If we are screening for a disease, we would group people into those with the disease and those without. We, as humans, usually do this because things in a group, called a class in machine learning, share common characteristics. If we know the class of something, we know a lot about it. In machine learning, the term classification is most commonly associated with a particular type of learning where examples of one or more classes, labeled with the name of the class, are given to the learning algorithm. The algorithm produces a classifier which maps the properties of these examples, normally expressed as attribute-value pairs, to the class labels. A new example whose class is unknown is classified when it is given a class label by the classifier based on its properties. In machine...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Chris Drummond

Authors
  1. Chris Drummond
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Claude Sammut

  2. Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Geoffrey I. Webb

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Drummond, C. (2017). Classification. In: Sammut, C., Webb, G.I. (eds) Encyclopedia of Machine Learning and Data Mining. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7687-1_111

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