A relevant feature combination assisted bi-level evolutionary multi-objective algorithm for feature selection in classification

Minimizing the number of selected features and reducing the error rate are the two primary objectives in feature selection problems. However, with the exponentially expanded search space caused by the increasing number of features, existing multi-objective feature selection methods often get trapped...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 39288 - 20
Main Authors: Xing, Lining, Li, Jun, Ma, Hong, Su, Zhenhua, Wu, Jian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 10.11.2025
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Subjects:
639/166
639/705
Accuracy
Algorithms
Bi-level Selection
Classification
Datasets
Efficiency
Feature selection
Genetic algorithms
Heuristic
Humanities and Social Sciences
Multi-objective optimization
multidisciplinary
Objectives
Optimization
Pareto optimum
Relevant feature combination
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Feature selection
Multi-objective optimization
Relevant feature combination
Bi-level Selection
ISSN:2045-2322, 2045-2322
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Minimizing the number of selected features and reducing the error rate are the two primary objectives in feature selection problems. However, with the exponentially expanded search space caused by the increasing number of features, existing multi-objective feature selection methods often get trapped in local optima and fail to achieve a good balance between these two objectives. To address these issues, this study introduces definitions of relevant and irrelevant feature combinations to distinguish promising from unpromising feature subsets. These definitions facilitate exploration of the decision space and enable effective approximation to regions where segments of the Pareto front (PF) may reside. By analyzing the relationship between the two objectives, a bi-level environmental selection method is proposed to achieve two goals: (1) ensuring basic convergence performance in terms of error rate and (2) maintaining a sound balance between the two objectives. Subsequently, a novel multi-objective evolutionary feature selection algorithm named DRF-FM is developed based on the aforementioned findings. Extensive experiments were conducted on 22 datasets using five comparative algorithms to verify the performance of DRF-FM. The results demonstrate that DRF-FM outperforms the competitors with the most superior overall performance.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-23043-6