Dimensionality reduction based on rough set theory: A review

A rough set theory is a new mathematical tool to deal with uncertainty and vagueness of decision system and it has been applied successfully in all the fields. It is used to identify the reduct set of the set of all attributes of the decision system. The reduct set is used as preprocessing technique for classification of the decision system in order to bring out the potential patterns or association rules or knowledge through data mining techniques. Several researchers have contributed variety of algorithms for computing the reduct sets by considering different cases like inconsistency, missing attribute values and multiple decision attributes of the decision system. This paper focuses on the review of the techniques for dimensionality reduction under rough set theory environment. Further, the rough sets hybridization with fuzzy sets, neural network and metaheuristic algorithms have also been reviewed. The performance analysis of the algorithms has been discussed in connection with the classification. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.