A new classification approach based on cooperative game

Classification is a well known task in data mining and machine learning that aims to predict the class of items as accurately as possible. A well planned data classification system makes essential data easy to find. An object is classified into one of the categories called classes according to the features that well separated the classes. Actually, classification maps an object to its classification label. Many researches used different learning algorithms to classify data; neural networks, decision trees, etc. In this paper, a new classification approach based on cooperative game is proposed. Cooperative game is a branch of game theory consists of a set of players and a characteristic function which specifies the value created by different subsets of the players in the game. In order to find classes in classification process, objects can be imagine as the players in a game and according to the values which obtained by these players, classes will be separated. This approach can be used to classify a population according to their contributions. In the other words, it applies equally to different types of data. Through out this paper, a special case in medical diagnosis was studied. 304 samples taken from human leukemia tissue consists of 17 attributes which determine different CD markers related to leukemia were analyzed. These samples collected from different types of leukemia at Iran Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO). Obtained results demonstrate that cooperative game is very promising to use directly for classification.