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FeatureSelectionNCAClassification class

Feature selection for classification using neighborhood component analysis (NCA)

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Description

FeatureSelectionNCAClassification object contains the data, fitting information, feature weights, and other parameters of a neighborhood component analysis (NCA) model. fscnca learns the feature weights using a diagonal adaptation of NCA and returns an instance of a FeatureSelectionNCAClassification object. The function achieves feature selection by regularizing the feature weights.

Construction

Create a FeatureSelectionNCAClassification object using fscnca.

Properties

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Number of observations in the training data (X and Y) after removing NaN or Inf values, stored as a scalar.

Data Types: double

Model parameters used for training the model, stored as a structure.

You can access the fields of ModelParameters using dot notation.

For example, for a FeatureSelectionNCAClassification object named mdl, you can access the LossFunction value using mdl.ModelParameters.LossFunction.

Data Types: struct

Regularization parameter used for training this model, stored as a scalar. For n observations, the best Lambda value that minimizes the generalization error of the NCA model is expected to be a multiple of 1/n.

Data Types: double

Name of the fitting method used to fit this model, stored as one of the following:

  • 'exact' — Perform fitting using all of the data.

  • 'none' — No fitting. Use this option to evaluate the generalization error of the NCA model using the initial feature weights supplied in the call to fscnca.

  • 'average' — Divide the data into partitions (subsets), fit each partition using the exact method, and return the average of the feature weights. You can specify the number of partitions using the NumPartitions name-value pair argument.

Name of the solver used to fit this model, stored as one of the following:

  • 'lbfgs' — Limited memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (LBFGS) algorithm

  • 'sgd' — Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm

  • 'minibatch-lbfgs' — stochastic gradient descent with LBFGS algorithm applied to mini-batches

Relative convergence tolerance on the gradient norm for the 'lbfgs' and 'minibatch-lbfgs' solvers, stored as a positive scalar value.

Data Types: double

Maximum number of iterations for optimization, stored as a positive integer value.

Data Types: double

Maximum number of passes for 'sgd' and 'minibatch-lbfgs' solvers. Every pass processes all of the observations in the data.

Data Types: double

Initial learning rate for the 'sgd' and 'minibatch-lbfgs' solvers, stored as a positive real scalar. The learning rate decays over iterations starting at the value specified for InitialLearningRate.

Use the NumTuningIterations and TuningSubsetSize name-value pair arguments to control the automatic tuning of initial learning rate in the call to fscnca.

Data Types: double

Verbosity level indicator, stored as a nonnegative integer. Possible values are:

  • 0 — No convergence summary

  • 1 — Convergence summary, including norm of gradient and objective function value

  • >1 — More convergence information, depending on the fitting algorithm. When you use the 'minibatch-lbfgs' solver and verbosity level > 1, the convergence information includes the iteration log from intermediate mini-batch LBFGS fits.

Data Types: double

Initial feature weights, stored as a p-by-1 vector of positive real scalars, where p is the number of predictors in X.

Data Types: double

Feature weights, specified as a p-by-1 numeric vector or a p-by-m numeric matrix, where p is the number of predictor variables after dummy variables are created for categorical variables (for more details, see ExpandedPredictorNames).

If FitMethod is 'average', then FeatureWeights is a p-by-m matrix. m is the number of partitions specified via the 'NumPartitions' name-value pair argument in the call to fscnca.

The absolute value of FeatureWeights(k) is a measure of the importance of predictor k. A FeatureWeights(k) value that is close to 0 indicates that predictor k does not influence the response in Y.

Data Types: double

Fit information, stored as a structure with the following fields.

Field NameMeaning
IterationIteration index
ObjectiveRegularized objective function for minimization
UnregularizedObjectiveUnregularized objective function for minimization
GradientGradient of regularized objective function for minimization

  • For classification, UnregularizedObjective represents the negative of the leave-one-out accuracy of the NCA classifier on the training data.

  • For regression, UnregularizedObjective represents the leave-one-out loss between the true response and the predicted response when using the NCA regression model.

  • For the 'lbfgs' solver, Gradient is the final gradient. For the 'sgd' and 'minibatch-lbfgs' solvers, Gradient is the final mini-batch gradient.

  • If FitMethod is 'average', then FitInfo is an m-by-1 structure array, where m is the number of partitions specified via the 'NumPartitions' name-value pair argument.

You can access the fields of FitInfo using dot notation. For example, for a FeatureSelectionNCAClassificationobject named mdl, you can access the Objective field using mdl.FitInfo.Objective.

Data Types: struct

Predictor means, stored as a p-by-1 vector for standardized training data. In this case, the predict method centers predictor matrix X by subtracting the respective element of Mu from every column.

If data is not standardized during training, then Mu is empty.

Data Types: double

Predictor standard deviations, stored as a p-by-1 vector for standardized training data. In this case, the predict method scales predictor matrix X by dividing every column by the respective element of Sigma after centering the data using Mu.

If data is not standardized during training, then Sigma is empty.

Data Types: double

Predictor values used to train this model, stored as an n-by-p matrix. n is the number of observations and p is the number of predictor variables in the training data.

Data Types: double

Response values used to train this model, stored as a numeric vector of size n, where n is the number of observations.

Data Types: double

Observation weights used to train this model, stored as a numeric vector of size n. The sum of observation weights is n.

Data Types: double

Categorical predictor indices, specified as a vector of positive integers. CategoricalPredictors contains index values indicating that the corresponding predictors are categorical. The index values are between 1 and p, where p is the number of predictors used to train the model. If none of the predictors are categorical, then this property is empty ([]).

Data Types: single | double

Response variable name, specified as a character vector.

Data Types: char

Predictor variable names in order of their appearance in the predictor data, specified as a cell array of character vectors. The length of PredictorNames is equal to the number of variables in the training data X used as predictor variables.

Data Types: cell

Expanded predictor names, specified as a cell array of unique character vectors.

If the model uses encoding for categorical variables, then ExpandedPredictorNames includes the names that describe the expanded variables. Otherwise, ExpandedPredictorNames is the same as PredictorNames.

Data Types: cell

Methods

lossEvaluate accuracy of learned feature weights on test data
predictPredict responses using neighborhood component analysis (NCA) classifier
refitRefit neighborhood component analysis (NCA) model for classification

Examples

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Open Live Script

Load the sample data.

load ionosphere

The data set has 34 continuous predictors. The response variable is the radar returns, labeled as b (bad) or g (good).

Fit a neighborhood component analysis (NCA) model for classification to detect the relevant features.

mdl = fscnca(X,Y);

The returned NCA model, mdl, is a FeatureSelectionNCAClassification object. This object stores information about the training data, model, and optimization. You can access the object properties, such as the feature weights, using dot notation.

Plot the feature weights.

figure()
plot(mdl.FeatureWeights,'ro')
xlabel('Feature Index')
ylabel('Feature Weight')
grid on

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with xlabel Feature Index, ylabel Feature Weight contains a line object which displays its values using only markers.

The weights of the irrelevant features are zero. The 'Verbose',1 option in the call to fscnca displays the optimization information on the command line. You can also visualize the optimization process by plotting the objective function versus the iteration number.

figure
plot(mdl.FitInfo.Iteration,mdl.FitInfo.Objective,'ro-')
grid on
xlabel('Iteration Number')
ylabel('Objective')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object with xlabel Iteration Number, ylabel Objective contains an object of type line.

The ModelParameters property is a struct that contains more information about the model. You can access the fields of this property using dot notation. For example, see if the data was standardized or not.

mdl.ModelParameters.Standardize
ans = logical
   0

0 means that the data was not standardized before fitting the NCA model. You can standardize the predictors when they are on very different scales using the 'Standardize',1 name-value pair argument in the call to fscnca .

Copy Semantics

Value. To learn how value classes affect copy operations, see Copying Objects.

Version History

Introduced in R2016b

See Also

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