Supervised discretization of continuous-valued attributes for classification using RACER algorithm.

In the contemporary world, data pervades every facet of human life, and the information contained in this data plays a pivotal role in shaping decision-making and advancing technology. Among the plethora of techniques available, classification methods are highly effective tools for extracting valuable insights from vast volumes of data. The R ule A ggregation C lassifi ER (RACER) is a novel rule-based classification algorithm known for its exceptional performance. A notable limitation of RACER lies in its inability to handle continuous features. In this paper, we address the aforementioned limitation by employing various supervised discretization methods, including CAIM, MDLP, Decision Tree (CART), and ChiMerge. The impact of these methods on RACER's accuracy and understandability is evaluated across nine datasets from the UCI repository. Additionally, the paper conducts a comparative analysis of RACER's accuracy against well-known classifiers such as Naive Bayes, Logistic Regression, SVM, LightGBM, and Decision Tree. The findings indicate that RACER achieves the highest average accuracy when we utilize MDLP as the discretization method, surpassing its initial average accuracy. Moreover, RACER demonstrates superior understandability by generating the lowest number of rules when employing ChiMerge and Decision Tree for discretizing numerical features. Furthermore, RACER outperforms the other five classifiers when employing MDLP. • The discretization unit enables the RACER algorithm to handle continuous data. • The discretization unit improves the classification accuracy of the RACER. • The discretization unit increases the understandability of the RACER rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]