Towards principled learner selection

Rattray, Andrew (2013) Towards principled learner selection. MRes thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Long learner evaluation times are no longer exceptional and often there is insufficient time to exhaustively test all candidate options. When deciding which learners to use, practitioners must rely on ad hoc testing and luck to identify the most accurate one. Given the importance of classification in decision making, this is unsatisfactory. Progress towards a principled approach requires accurate predictions of learner accuracy and evaluation time and this study examines the potential of traditional meta-learning approaches, with their emphasis on indirect explanatory variables, to deliver the required solutions.

Here, 57 different indirect dataset characteristics, including those related to geometrical complexity, are used as explanatory variables, alongside sample-estimates, in building regression models of accuracy and time.

The evidence presented firmly suggests that these indirect variables lack both the required predictive power and the time efficiency required for the development of practically useful models, and points instead towards basing the prediction of learner accuracy solely on sample-based models. The attempt at modelling learner evaluation time reveals some of the difficulties that this tough challenge presents.

Item Type: Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (MRes)
Supervisors: Bacardit, J.
Keywords: machine learning, algorithms
Subjects: Q Science > Q Science (General)
Faculties/Schools: UK Campuses > Faculty of Science > School of Computer Science
Item ID: 13299
Depositing User: EP, Services
Date Deposited: 08 Aug 2013 13:13
Last Modified: 19 Dec 2017 10:08
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/13299

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