On decomposition for incomplete data

In this paper we present a method of data decomposition to avoid the necessity of reasoning on data with missing attribute values. This method can be applied to any algorithm of classifier induction. The original incomplete data is decomposed into data subsets without missing values. Next, methods for classifier induction are applied to these sets. Finally, a conflict resolving method is used to obtain final classification from partial classifiers. We provide an empirical evaluation of the decomposition method accuracy and model size with use of various decomposition criteria on data with natural missing values. We present also experiments on data with synthetic missing values to examine the properties of proposed method with variable ratio of incompleteness.