Feature Selection in High Dimensional Data by a Filter-Based Genetic Algorithm

In classification and clustering problems, feature selection techniques can be used to reduce the dimensionality of the data and increase the performances. However, feature selection is a challenging task, especially when hundred or thousands of features are involved. In this framework, we present a new approach for improving the performance of a filter-based genetic algorithm. The proposed approach consists of two steps: first, the available features are ranked according to a univariate evaluation function; then the search space represented by the first M features in the ranking is searched using a filter-based genetic algorithm for finding feature subsets with a high discriminative power. Experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach in dealing with high dimensional data, both in terms of recognition rate and feature number reduction.