Attribute reduction based on fuzziness of approximation set in multi-granulation spaces

Rough set theory is an important tool to solve uncertain problems. Attribute reduction, as one of the core issues of rough set theory, has been proven to be an effective method for knowledge acquisition. Most of heuristic attribute reduction algorithms usually keep the positive region of a target set unchanged and ignore boundary region information. So, how to acquire knowledge from the boundary region of a target set in a multi-granulation space is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new concept, fuzziness of an approximation set of rough set is put forward firstly. Then the change rules of fuzziness in changing granularity spaces are analyzed. Finally, a new algorithm for attribute reduction based on the fuzziness of 0.5-approximation set is presented. Several experimental results show that the attribute reduction by the proposed method has relative better classification characteristics compared with various classification algorithms.