Foundations of Classification

Classification is one of the main tasks in machine learning, data mining, and pattern recognition. A granular computing model is suggested for learning two basic issues of concept formation and concept relationship identification. A classification problem can be considered as a search for suitable granules organized under a partial order. The structures of search space, solutions to a consistent classification problem, and the structures of solution space are discussed. A classification rule induction method is proposed. Instead of searching for a suitable partition, we concentrate on the search for a suitable covering of the given universe. This method is more general than partition-based methods. For the design of covering granule selection heuristics, several measures on granules are suggested.