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The minimum feature subset selection problem

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Abstract

In applications of learning from examples to real-world tasks, feature subset selection is important to speed up training and to improve generalization performance. Ideally, an inductive algorithm should use subset of features as small as possible. In this paper however, the authors show that the problem of selecting the minimum subset of features is NP-hard. The paper then presents a greedy algorithm for feature subset selection. The result of running the greedy algorithm on hand-written numeral recognition problem is also given.

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Chen Bin, born in 1968, received his M.S. degree in 1994. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science, Harbin Institute of Technology. His research focuses on machine learning and computational learning theory.

Hong Jiarong, born in 1939, is a Professor of the Department of Computer Science, Harbin Institute of Technology. His research focuses on machine learning, computational learning theory, expert system and pattern recognition.

Wang Yiadong, born in 1964, is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Management Engineering. His research focuses on expert system and case-based reasoning

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Chen, B., Hong, J. & Wang, Y. The minimum feature subset selection problem. J. of Comput. Sci. & Technol. 12, 145–153 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02951333

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02951333

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