CancelOut: A Layer for Feature Selection in Deep Neural Networks

Vadim Borisov, Johannes Haug, Gjergji Kasneci

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

34 Scopus citations

Abstract

Feature ranking (FR) and feature selection (FS) are crucial steps in data preprocessing; they can be used to avoid the curse of dimensionality problem, reduce training time, and enhance the performance of a machine learning model. In this paper, we propose a new layer for deep neural networks - CancelOut, which can be utilized for FR and FS tasks, for supervised and unsupervised learning. Empirical results show that the proposed method can find feature subsets that are superior to traditional feature analysis techniques. Furthermore, the layer is easy to use and requires adding only a few additional lines of code to a deep learning training loop. We implemented the proposed method using the PyTorch framework and published it online (The code is available at: www.github.com/unnir/CancelOut ).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationArtificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning – ICANN 2019
Subtitle of host publicationDeep Learning - 28th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Proceedings
EditorsIgor V. Tetko, Pavel Karpov, Fabian Theis, Vera Kurková
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages72-83
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783030304836
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event28th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2019 - Munich, Germany
Duration: 17 Sep 201919 Sep 2019

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11728 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference28th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2019
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityMunich
Period17/09/1919/09/19

Keywords

  • Deep learning
  • Feature ranking
  • Feature selection
  • Machine learning explainability
  • Unsupervised feature selection

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