A Jaya algorithm based wrapper method for optimal feature selection in supervised classification

Abstract

In recent years, Jaya optimization algorithm has been successfully applied in several optimization problems. This paper presents a novel feature selection (FS) approach based on Jaya optimization algorithm (FSJaya) along with supervised machine learning techniques to select the optimal features. This approach uses a search technique to find the best suitable features by updating the worst features to reduce the dimensions of the feature space. This improves the performance of supervised machine learning techniques. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is evaluated for ten benchmark datasets and compared with several FS approaches such as FS using genetic algorithm (FSGA), FS using particle swarm optimization algorithm (FSPSO), and FS using differential evolutionary (FSDE). The experimental result has shown that the average classification accuracy of FSJaya on most of the datasets is superior over the existing methods such as FSGA, FSPSO, and FSDE. The proof of statistical significance of the proposed approach has been validated by using Friedman and Holm test. This proposed approach is found efficient in selecting an optimal subset of features as compared to other counterparts.

Keywords

• Feature selection
• Supervised classification
• Jaya
• Optimization algorithm
• Wrapper method