A data-level fusion model for unsupervised attribute selection in multi-source homogeneous data

Information fusion refers to derive an overall precise description of data by using certain fusion technique for utilizing the complementary information from multiple sources of data, which can facilitate effective decision-making, prediction and classification, etc. Multi-source homogeneous data, characterizing the data type of variables in the sample in form of one type (i.e., numerical or categorical) in different information sources, which widely exists in many practical applications. This paper concentrates on efficient fusion of multi-source homogeneous data with a data-level fusion model which involves the consolidation of multiple information sources and unsupervised attribute selection of the fused data. A unified description and modeling method of a multi-source homogeneous information system is introduced. The neighborhood rough sets model is used to construct the neighborhood granular structure, which uses the idea of granular computing to build methods of uncertainty measures. Given the uncertainty of fusing multiple information sources, Sup–Inf fusion functions are developed based on the proposed uncertainty measures, which can fuse the multi-source homogeneous information system into a single-source information system. Finally, an unsupervised attribute selection approach is employed to eliminate redundant attribute of the single-source information system. Theoretical analysis and comprehensive experiments on several datasets demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of our method.