CardiCat generates synthetic data for high-cardinality tabular datasets.
problem Learning complexities of high-cardinality categorical features in tabular data.
method Substitutes one-hot encoding with regularized dual encoder-decoder embedding layers.
result Generates high-quality synthetic data with a smaller parameter space.
Novel GLMMNet model tackles high-cardinality categorical features in actuarial applications.
problem Inadequate encoding methods for high-cardinality categorical features in actuarial data.
method Generalised Linear Mixed Model Neural Network (GLMMNet) integrating a generalised linear mixed model in a deep learning framework.
result GLMMNet often outperforms or performs comparably with entity embedded neural networks, providing transparency.
This study compares machine learning methods for high-cardinality categorical variables.
problem Machine learning struggles with high-cardinality categorical variables.
method Empirical comparison of tree-boosting, deep neural networks, and linear mixed effects models.
result Tree-boosting with random effects outperforms deep neural networks with random effects.
Regularized target encoding beats traditional methods for high cardinality features in ML.
problem Efficiently encoding high cardinality categorical variables for ML algorithms.
method Regularized target encoding compared to traditional encodings like integer and one-hot encoding.
result Regularized target encoding consistently provided the best results in a large-scale benchmark experiment.
Statistical models usually require vector representations of categorical variables, using for instance one-hot encoding. This strategy breaks down when the number of categories grows, as it creates high-dimensional feature vectors. Additionally, for string entries, one-hot encoding does not capture information in their…
Proposes a new DNN framework for count data with high-cardinality features.
problem Real-world data often have correlations and high-cardinality categorical features that traditional DNNs overlook.
method Introduces a hierarchical likelihood learning framework with gamma random effects for Poisson DNNs.
result Improves prediction performance by capturing nonlinear effects and subject-specific cluster effects.
For statistical learning, categorical variables in a table are usually considered as discrete entities and encoded separately to feature vectors, e.g., with one-hot encoding. "Dirty" non-curated data gives rise to categorical variables with a very high cardinality but redundancy: several categories reflect the same ent…
Applied Data Scientists throughout various industries are commonly faced with the challenging task of encoding high-cardinality categorical features into digestible inputs for machine learning algorithms. This paper describes a Bayesian encoding technique developed for WeWork's lead scoring engine which outputs the pro…
Method reduces categorical data to lower dimensions using density matrices.
problem Dimensionality reduction for categorical data.
method Density-matrix construction from class-conditional frequencies; spectral embedding.
result Low-dimensional spectral embeddings with controlled rank.
This research compares two encoding methods for categorical attributes in machine learning, affecting model fairness.
problem The impact of encoding protected categorical attributes on fairness in machine learning models.
method Comparison of one-hot encoding and target encoding methods.
result Target encoding can lead to more unfair models compared to one-hot encoding due to induced bias.
Combines boosting with Gaussian process and mixed effects models.
problem Model misspecifications and independence assumptions in boosting.
method Relaxes zero or linearity assumption in Gaussian process and mixed effects models, and independence assumption in boosting.
result Increased prediction accuracy compared to existing approaches.
Improved classification model for high-cardinality categorical predictors.
problem Handling high-cardinality categorical predictors and non-linear data.
method Data-driven binning of spline functions and shrinkage estimators.
result Improved classification precision with interpretable predictors.
This paper proposes a method to reduce complexity in GLMs with categorical predictors.
problem Wasteful, hard-to-interpret, and prone to overfitting of traditional one-hot encoding for high-cardinality categorical predictors.
method Clustering categories of categorical predictors through a numerical method that preserves or improves accuracy while reducing the number of coefficients.
result Clustering categories of categorical predictors reduces complexity substantially without harming accuracy.
Unified comparison of gradient boosting algorithms for insurance claims.
problem Improving predictive accuracy and computational efficiency in insurance claim prediction.
method Unified notation and comprehensive numerical study comparing 12 gradient boosting algorithms on 5 datasets.
result No trade-off between model adequacy and predictive accuracy.
MMbeddings reduces categorical embeddings by treating them as latent effects, significantly decreasing parameters and mitigating overfitting.
problem Large cardinalities in categorical embeddings lead to high parameter counts and overfitting.
method MMbeddings treats embeddings as latent random effects in a variational autoencoder framework, reducing parameter count and mitigating overfitting.
result MMbeddings consistently outperforms traditional embeddings across various tasks, demonstrating its potential in machine learning applications.
Boosting trees predict Twitch subscriptions from user activity.
problem Predicting Twitch user subscriptions from activity data.
method Used boosting trees and target-encodings for high cardinality categoricals.
result User activity can be better predicted than content alone.
Structured high-cardinality data arises in many domains, and poses a major challenge for both modeling and inference. Graphical models are a popular approach to modeling structured data but they are unsuitable for high-cardinality variables. The count-min (CM) sketch is a popular approach to estimating probabilities in…
MC-GMENN improves neural networks for clustered data using Monte Carlo methods.
problem Improving neural network performance on clustered data with correlations.
method MC-GMENN employs Monte Carlo methods to train generalized mixed effects neural networks.
result MC-GMENN outperforms existing models in generalization and quantifying inter-cluster variance.
SYNTHONY selects tabular synthesizers based on stress profiling and user intent.
problem Non-uniform performance of tabular generative models across datasets.
method Stress profiling and intent-conditioned tabular synthesis selection.
result Meta-features predict synthesizer performance, improving selection accuracy.
Combines boosting and latent Gaussian models for better predictions.
problem Boosting's assumptions and latent Gaussian models' limitations.
method Integrates tree-boosting and latent Gaussian models.
result Increased prediction accuracy in simulations and real-world data.
New Krylov subspace methods speed up mixed-effects models with crossed random effects.
problem Slow computations for high-dimensional crossed random effects in mixed-effects models.
method Krylov subspace-based methods for generalized mixed-effects models with cross effects.
result Speedups by factors of up to 10,000 in computations for mixed-effects models.
Recommendation models mainly deal with categorical variables, such as user/item ID and attributes. Besides the high-cardinality issue, the interactions among such categorical variables are usually long-tailed, with the head made up of highly frequent values and a long tail of rare ones. This phenomenon results in the d…
The paper proposes a method to analyze categorical feature interactions in large datasets using graph covariance and LLMs.
problem Analyzing complex datasets with numerous categorical features and timestamps.
method Binarization of categorical features using one-hot encoding, computation of graph covariance, identifying significant feature pairs, and using LLMs to generate explanations.
result The method identifies meaningful feature pairs and potential data stories underlying categorical feature interactions.
A novel graph spectral method for mixed categorical and numerical data.
problem Feature learning for mixed data types (numerical and categorical).
method Graph spectral decomposition of the graph Laplacian to model probabilistic dependence structure.
result Increased separability and clusterability of observations in the transformed feature space.
The paper shows how integrating categorical semantics can enhance unsupervised domain translation.
problem Improving unsupervised domain translation between perceptually different domains.
method Learning invariant categorical semantic features in an unsupervised manner and conditioning them on the style encoder.
result Conditioning the style encoder on learned categorical semantics improves translation and stylization.
Probabilistic hash embeddings improve online learning of categorical features.
problem Online learning of categorical features with changing vocabulary.
method Probabilistic hash embedding (PHE) with Bayesian online learning.
result PHE mitigates forgetting and maintains high performance in online settings.
In this paper, we present a new wrapper feature selection approach based on Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence, termed feature selection with maximum JS-divergence (FSMJ), for text categorization. Unlike most existing feature selection approaches, the proposed FSMJ approach is based on real-valued features which provide mo…
CatGCN improves GCNs by modeling feature interactions for categorical node features.
problem Suboptimal initial node representations in GCNs due to lack of feature interaction modeling.
method Integrates explicit interaction modeling (local and global) into initial node representation learning for categorical node features.
result CatGCN enhances initial node representations through feature interaction modeling, leading to improved model performance.
We propose a method to train generative adversarial networks on mutivariate feature vectors representing multiple categorical values. In contrast to the continuous domain, where GAN-based methods have delivered considerable results, GANs struggle to perform equally well on discrete data. We propose and compare several …
Unsupervised clustering can reproduce categorization systems if features and metrics are correctly selected.
problem Reproducing expert-provided categorization systems using unsupervised clustering.
method Investigated using toy datasets and real-world fund categorization. Used appropriate feature selection and a supervised Random Forest-based distance metric.
result Unsupervised clustering can reproduce ground truth classes if features and metrics are correctly selected.
The study analyzes decision trees on real and categorical features, deriving bounds on their VC dimension and proposing improved pruning algorithms.
problem Understanding the generalization properties of decision trees on different types of features.
method Introducing partitioning functions, relating them to growth functions and VC dimension, and deriving bounds for decision stumps and trees of various structures.
result Exact VC dimension of decision stumps and improved pruning algorithms for binary trees.
Natural Language Processing models help encode categorical process inputs.
problem Encoding categorical variables in industrial process modeling.
method Using NLP models for categorical variable encoding, combined with dimensionality reduction.
result Meaningful embeddings of categorical variables improve feature importance.
Stratified models are models that depend in an arbitrary way on a set of selected categorical features, and depend linearly on the other features. In a basic and traditional formulation a separate model is fit for each value of the categorical feature, using only the data that has the specific categorical value. To thi…
Automated feature selection is important for text categorization to reduce the feature size and to speed up the learning process of classifiers. In this paper, we present a novel and efficient feature selection framework based on the Information Theory, which aims to rank the features with their discriminative capacity…
Decision forests learn to model text by evaluating categorical-set conditions.
problem Decision forests cannot directly model text features.
method Defined and learned conditions for categorical-set features, enabling efficient text modeling.
result Decision forests can now directly model text features.
Develops 2-categorical methods for multi-parameter persistence.
problem Fundamental limitations of traditional persistence modules.
method 2-categorical structures to capture hierarchical interactions.
result New invariants effectively characterize multidimensional topological features.
Baseline injury categorization is important to traumatic brain injury (TBI) research and treatment. Current categorization is dominated by symptom-based scores that insufficiently capture injury heterogeneity. In this work, we apply unsupervised clustering to identify novel TBI phenotypes. Our approach uses a generaliz…
In this paper we present CatBoost, a new open-sourced gradient boosting library that successfully handles categorical features and outperforms existing publicly available implementations of gradient boosting in terms of quality on a set of popular publicly available datasets. The library has a GPU implementation of lea…
Random Intersection Chains selects important interactions from categorical features.
problem Heavy computational burden in considering all interactions for categorical features.
method Randomly generates chains of intersections, estimates and selects frequent patterns.
result Selected patterns are the most frequent in the data set.
ctsfeatures R package analyzes categorical time series data.
problem Lack of tools for analyzing categorical time series data.
method Provides functions for extracting statistical features and constructing graphs.
result Package enables traditional machine learning tasks on categorical time series.
Improved isolation forest for better outlier detection.
problem Outlier detection in multivariate data.
method Random cuts across feature space, size of feature space, and point assignment information.
result Improved results in many situations without modifying tree structure.
DPERC efficiently estimates covariance matrices for mixed data with missing values.
problem Estimating covariance matrices for datasets with missing values and mixed features.
method Direct Parameter Estimation for Randomly Missing Data with Categorical Features (DPERC).
result DPERC outperforms other methods in estimating covariance matrices for mixed data with missing values.
Decision trees have been a very popular class of predictive models for decades due to their interpretability and good performance on categorical features. However, they are not always robust and tend to overfit the data. Additionally, if allowed to grow large, they lose interpretability. In this paper, we present a mix…
Interprets neural network classifiers for categorical inputs.
problem Neural networks' interpretability in human-sensitive applications.
method Mapping to physical energy model, expansion of neural network layers.
result Each layer's contribution to classification can be analyzed.
We consider analysis of relational data (a matrix), in which the rows correspond to subjects (e.g., people) and the columns correspond to attributes. The elements of the matrix may be a mix of real and categorical. Each subject and attribute is characterized by a latent binary feature vector, and an inferred matrix map…
New framework detects outliers in non-IID categorical data.
problem Existing outlier detection methods fail in non-IID data.
method Value-value graph-based representation and outlierness propagation.
result Significant improvement in AUC on complex data sets.
Study investigates how preprocessing, feature selection, and model selection affect performance on imbalanced genetic data.
problem Challenges in using machine learning on imbalanced genetic datasets.
method Comparative analysis of data preprocessing, feature selection techniques, and machine learning models on imbalanced genetic data.
result Class-imbalanced target variables and skewed predictors have little to no impact on classification performance.
We solve the ANOVA decomposition for categorical inputs.
problem Lack of a closed-form expression for ANOVA decomposition with categorical dependent variables.
method Bridge functional analysis with discrete Fourier analysis to derive a closed-form decomposition.
result Closed-form decomposition for categorical inputs without assumptions.