dlordinal: A Python package for deep ordinal classification
Francisco Bérchez-Moreno, Rafael Ayllón-Gavilán, Víctor Manuel Vargas, David Guijo-Rubio, César Hervás‐Martínez, Juan Carlos Fernández Fernández, Pedro Antonio Gutiérrez
Abstract
dlordinal is a new Python library that unifies many recent deep ordinal classification methodologies available in the literature. Developed using PyTorch as underlying framework, it implements the top performing state-of-the-art deep learning techniques for ordinal classification problems. Ordinal approaches are designed to leverage the ordering information present in the target variable. Specifically, it includes loss functions, various output layers, dropout techniques, soft labelling methodologies, and other classification strategies, all of which are appropriately designed to incorporate the ordinal information. Furthermore, as the performance metrics to assess novel proposals in ordinal classification depend on the distance between target and predicted classes in the ordinal scale, suitable ordinal evaluation metrics are also included. dlordinal is distributed under the BSD-3-Clause license and is available at https://github.com/ayrna/dlordinal . • Python package with ordinal classification methodologies for deep learning. • Ordinal dropout methodologies, output layers, soft labelling, losses and wrappers. • Easy integration with third party packages like Skorch . • Extensive test coverage. • User-friendly interface with intuitive design and comprehensive tutorials.