Approaches to knowledge reduction of covering decision systems based on information theory

In this paper, we propose some new approaches for attribute reduction in covering decision systems from the viewpoint of information theory. Firstly, we introduce information entropy and conditional entropy of the covering and define attribute reduction by means of conditional entropy in consistent covering decision systems. Secondly, in inconsistent covering decision systems, the limitary conditional entropy of the covering is proposed and attribute reductions are defined. And finally, by the significance of the covering, some algorithms are designed to compute all the reducts of consistent and inconsistent covering decision systems. We prove that their computational complexity are polynomial. Numerical tests show that the proposed attribute reductions accomplish better classification performance than those of traditional rough sets. In addition, in traditional rough set theory, MIBARK-algorithm [G.Y. Wang, H. Hu, D. Yang, Decision table reduction based on conditional information entropy, Chinese J. Comput., 25 (2002) 1–8] cannot ensure the reduct is the minimal attribute subset which keeps the decision rule invariant in inconsistent decision systems. Here, we solve this problem in inconsistent covering decision systems.