Rule learning with probabilistic smoothing

A hierarchical classification framework is proposed for discriminating rare classes in imprecise domains, characterized by rarity (of both classes and cases), noise and low class separability. The devised framework couples the rules of a rule-based classifier with as many local probabilistic generative models. These are trained over the coverage of the corresponding rules to better catch those globally rare cases/classes that become less rare in the coverage. Two novel schemes for tightly integrating rule-based and probabilistic classification are introduced, that classify unlabeled cases by considering multiple classifier rules as well as their local probabilistic counterparts. An intensive evaluation shows that the proposed framework is competitive and often superior in accuracy w.r.t. established competitors, while overcoming them in dealing with rare classes. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.