Selection of relevant features in a fuzzy genetic learning algorithm.

Genetic algorithms offer a powerful search method for a variety of learning tasks, and there are different approaches in which they have been applied to learning processes. Structural learning algorithm on vague environment (SLAVE) is a genetic learning algorithm that uses the iterative approach to learn fuzzy rules. SLAVE can select the relevant features of the domain, but when working with large databases the search space is too large and the running time can sometimes be excessive. We propose to improve SLAVE by including a feature selection model in which the genetic algorithm works with individuals (representing individual rules) composed of two structures: one structure representing the relevance status of the involved variables in the rule, the other one representing the assignments variable/value. For this general representation, we study two alternatives depending on the information coded in the first structure. When compared with the initial algorithm, this new approach of SLAVE reduces the number of rules, simplifies the structure of the rules and improves the total accuracy.