Ensemble adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system with weighted arithmetical mean and application to diagnosis of optic nerve disease from visual-evoked potential signals

SummaryObjectiveThis paper presents a new method based on combining principal component analysis (PCA) and adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) to diagnose the optic nerve disease from visual-evoked potential (VEP) signals. The aim of this study is to improve the classification accuracy of ANFIS classifier on diagnosis of optic nerve disease from VEP signals. With this aim, a new classifier ensemble based on ANFIS and PCA is proposed.Methods and materialThe VEP signals dataset include 61 healthy subjects and 68 patients suffered from optic nerve disease. First of all, the dimension of VEP signals dataset with 63 features has been reduced to 4 features using PCA. After applying PCA, ANFIS trained using three different training–testing datasets randomly with 50–50% training–testing partition.ResultsThe obtained classification results from ANFIS trained separately with three different training–testing datasets are 96.87%, 98.43%, and 98.43%, respectively. And then the results of ANFIS trained with three different training–testing datasets randomly with 50–50% training–testing partition have been combined with three different ways including weighted arithmetical mean that proposed firstly by us, arithmetical mean, and geometrical mean. The classification results of ANFIS combined with three different ways are 98.43%, 100%, and 100%, respectively. Also, ensemble ANFIS has been compared with ANN ensemble. ANN ensemble obtained 98.43%, 100%, and 100% prediction accuracy with three different ways including arithmetical mean, geometrical mean and weighted arithmetical mean.ConclusionThese results have shown that the proposed classifier ensemble approach based on ANFIS trained with different train–test datasets and PCA has produced very promising results in the diagnosis of optic nerve disease from VEP signals.