Optimal-Margin Evolutionary Classifier

We introduce a novel approach for discriminative classification using evolutionary algorithms. We first propose an algorithm to optimize the total loss value using a modified 0-1 loss function in a 1-D space for classification. We then extend this algorithm for multidimensional classification using an evolutionary algorithm. The proposed evolutionary algorithm aims to find a hyperplane that best classifies instances while minimizing the classification risk. We test particle swarm optimization, evolutionary strategy (ES), and covariance matrix adaptation ES for optimization purposes. After parameter selection, we compare our results with well-established and state-of-the-art classification algorithms, for both binary and multiclass classification, on 23 benchmark classification problems, with and without noise and outliers. We also compare these methods on a seizure detection task for 12 epileptic patients. Results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is significantly (Wilcoxon test) better than all other methods in almost all problems tested. We also show that the proposed algorithm is significantly more robust against noise and outliers comparing to other methods. The running time of the algorithm is within a reasonable range for the solution of real-world classification problems.