Classifier Subset Selection to construct multi-classifiers by means of estimation of distribution algorithms

This paper proposes a novel approach to select the individual classifiers to take part in a Multiple-Classifier System. Individual classifier selection is a key step in the development of multi-classifiers. Several works have shown the benefits of fusing complementary classifiers. Nevertheless, the selection of the base classifiers to be used is still an open question, and different approaches have been proposed in the literature. This work is based on the selection of the appropriate single classifiers by means of an evolutionary algorithm. Different base classifiers, which have been chosen from different classifier families, are used as candidates in order to obtain variability in the classifications given. Experimental results carried out with 20 databases from the UCI Repository show how adequate the proposed approach is; Stacked Generalization multi-classifier has been selected to perform the experimental comparisons. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.