Health Discovery Corporation

Fernando Perez-Cruz

Isabelle Guyon

Jason Edward Weston

André Elisseeff

Bernhard Schölkopf

Jason Aaron Edward Weston

Bernhard Schoelkopf

A group of features that has been identified as 'significant' in being able to separate data into classes is evaluated using a support vector machine which separates the dataset into classes one feature at a time. After separation, an extremal margin value is assigned to each feature based on the distance between the lowest feature value in the first class and the highest feature value in the second class. Separately, extremal margin values are calculated for a normal distribution within a large number of randomly drawn example sets for the two classes to determine the number of examples within the normal distribution that would have a specified extremal margin value. Using p-values calculated for the normal distribution, a desired p-value is selected. The specified extremal margin value corresponding to the selected p-value is compared to the calculated extremal margin values for the group of features. The features in the group that have a calculated extremal margin value less than the specified margin value are labeled as falsely significant.

Method for feature selection and for evaluating features identified as significant for classifying data

In a pre-processing step prior to training a learning machine, pre-processing includes reducing the quantity of features to be processed using feature selection methods selected from the group consisting of recursive feature elimination (RFE), minimizing the number of non-zero parameters of the system (l-norm minimization), evaluation of cost function to identify a subset of features that are compatible with constraints imposed by the learning set, unbalanced correlation score, transductive feature selection and single feature using margin-based ranking. The features remaining after feature selection are then used to train a learning machine for purposes of pattern classification, regression, clustering and/or novelty detection.

Method for feature selection in a support vector machine using feature ranking

A computer-implemented method is provided for ranking features within a large dataset containing a large number of features according to each feature's ability to separate data into classes. For each feature, a support vector machine separates the dataset into two classes and determines the margins between extremal points in the two classes. The margins for all of the features are compared and the features are ranked based upon the size of the margin, with the highest ranked features corresponding to the largest margins. A subset of features for classifying the dataset is selected from a group of the highest ranked features. In one embodiment, the method is used to identify the best genes for disease prediction and diagnosis using gene expression data from micro-arrays.

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Madrid, Spain

Fernando Perez-Cruz