A data envelopment analysis-based approach for data preprocessing

In this paper, we show how the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model might be useful to screen training data so a subset of examples that satisfy monotonicity property can be identified. Using real-world health care and software engineering data, managerial monotonicity assumption, and artificial neural network (ANN) as a forecasting model, we illustrate that DEA-based data screening of training data improves forecasting accuracy of an ANN. Index Terms--Data envelopment analysis, artificial neural networks, data preprocessing.