Semi-supervised associative classification using ant colony optimization algorithm

Labeled data is the main ingredient for classification tasks. Labeled data is not always available and free. Semi-supervised learning solves the problem of labeling the unlabeled instances through heuristics. Self-training is one of the most widely-used comprehensible approaches for labeling data. Traditional self-training approaches tend to show low classification accuracy when the majority of the data is unlabeled. A novel approach named Self-Training using Associative Classification using Ant Colony Optimization (ST-AC-ACO) has been proposed in this article to label and classify the unlabeled data instances to improve self-training classification accuracy by exploiting the association among attribute values (terms) and between a set of terms and class labels of the labeled instances. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) has been employed to construct associative classification rules based on labeled and pseudo-labeled instances. Experiments demonstrate the superiority of the proposed associative self-training approach to its competing traditional self-training approaches.