Attribute selection for heterogeneous data based on information entropy
Zhaowen Li, Liangdong Qu, Gangqiang Zhang, Ningxin Xie
Abstract
Attribute selection in an information system is one of the important applications of rough set theory. This paper studies attribute selection for heterogeneous data based on information entropy. We first define information entropy in an information system with heterogeneous data and then put forward the notions of joint information entropy, conditional information entropy and mutual information entropy in a decision information system with heterogeneous data. We apply information entropy to perform attribute selection in a decision information system with heterogeneous data. We propose two attribute selection algorithms based on information entropy. Finally, we make experimental analysis and comparisons to illustrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed algorithms.