Skip to main content

Adaptive Estimation of the Optimal ROC Curve and a Bipartite Ranking Algorithm

  • Conference paper
Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5809))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an adaptive algorithm for bipartite ranking and prove its statistical performance in a stronger sense than the AUC criterion. Our procedure builds on and significantly improves the RankOver algorithm proposed in [1]. The algorithm outputs a piecewise constant scoring rule which is obtained by overlaying a finite collection of classifiers. Here, each of these classifiers is the empirical solution of a specific minimum-volume set (MV-set) estimation problem. The major novelty arises from the fact that the levels of the MV-sets to recover are chosen adaptively from the data to adjust to the variability of the target curve. The ROC curve of the estimated scoring rule may be interpreted as an adaptive spline approximant of the optimal ROC curve. Error bounds for the estimate of the optimal ROC curve in terms of the L  ∞ -distance are also provided.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Clémençon, S., Vayatis, N.: Overlaying classifiers: a practical approach for optimal ranking. In: NIPS 2008: Proceedings of the 2008 conference on Advances in neural information processing systems, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 313–320 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Flach, P.: Tutorial on “the many faces of roc analysis in machine learning”. In: ICML 2004 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Freund, Y., Iyer, R.D., Schapire, R.E., Singer, Y.: An efficient boosting algorithm for combining preferences. Journal of Machine Learning Research 4, 933–969 (2003)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Agarwal, S., Graepel, T., Herbrich, R., Har-Peled, S., Roth, D.: Generalization bounds for the area under the ROC curve. Journal of Machine Learning Research 6, 393–425 (2005)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Clémençon, S., Lugosi, G., Vayatis, N.: Ranking and empirical risk minimization of U-statistics. The Annals of Statistics 36(2), 844–874 (2008)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Clémençon, S., Vayatis, N.: Overlaying classifiers: a practical approach to optimal scoring. To appear in Constructive Approximation (hal-00341246) (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Scott, C., Nowak, R.: Learning minimum volume sets. Journal of Machine Learning Research 7, 665–704 (2006)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Clémençon, S., Vayatis, N.: Tree-structured ranking rules and approximation of the optimal ROC curve. Technical Report hal-00268068, HAL (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Clémençon, S., Vayatis, N.: Tree-structured ranking rules and approximation of the optimal ROC curve. In: ALT 2008: Proceedings of the 2008 conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Devore, R., Lorentz, G.: Constructive Approximation. Springer, Heidelberg (1993)

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Scott, C., Nowak, R.: A Neyman-Pearson approach to statistical learning. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 51(11), 3806–3819 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Boucheron, S., Bousquet, O., Lugosi, G.: Theory of Classification: A Survey of Some Recent Advances. ESAIM: Probability and Statistics 9, 323–375 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Tsybakov, A.: Optimal aggregation of classifiers in statistical learning. Annals of Statistics 32(1), 135–166 (2004)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Devore, R.: A note on adaptive approximation. Approx. Theory Appl. 3, 74–78 (1987)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Bennett, C., Sharpley, R.: Interpolation of Operators. Academic Press, London (1988)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Devore, R.: Nonlinear approximation. Acta Numerica, 51–150 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Clémençon, S., Vayatis, N. (2009). Adaptive Estimation of the Optimal ROC Curve and a Bipartite Ranking Algorithm. In: Gavaldà, R., Lugosi, G., Zeugmann, T., Zilles, S. (eds) Algorithmic Learning Theory. ALT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5809. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04414-4_20

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04414-4_20

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04413-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04414-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics