A semi-supervised classification technique based on interacting forces

Semi-supervised learning is a classification paradigm in which just a few labeled instances are available for the training process. To overcome this small amount of initial label information, the information provided by the unlabeled instances is also considered. In this paper, we propose a nature-inspired semi-supervised learning technique based on attraction forces. Instances are represented as points in a k-dimensional space, and the movement of data points is modeled as a dynamical system. As the system runs, data items with the same label cooperate with each other, and data items with different labels compete among them to attract unlabeled points by applying a specific force function. In this way, all unlabeled data items can be classified when the system reaches its stable state. Stability analysis for the proposed dynamical system is performed and some heuristics are proposed for parameter setting. Simulation results show that the proposed technique achieves good classification results on artificial data sets and is comparable to well-known semi-supervised techniques using benchmark data sets. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.