An enhancement for heuristic attribute reduction algorithm in rough set

•The limitation of existing heuristic attribute reduction algorithms is analyzed.•An enhancement for heuristic attribute reduction in rough set is proposed.•The objective of the enhancement is to effectively achieve the optimal reduct.•Two heuristic attribute reduction algorithms are improved with the enhancement.

Attribute reduction is one of the most important issues in the research of rough set theory. Numerous significance measure based heuristic attribute reduction algorithms have been presented to achieve the optimal reduct. However, how to handle the situation that multiple attributes have equally largest significances is still largely unknown. In this regard, an enhancement for heuristic attribute reduction (EHAR) in rough set is proposed. In some rounds of the process of adding attributes, those that have the same largest significance are not randomly selected, but build attribute combinations and compare their significances. Then the most significant combination rather than a randomly selected single attribute is added into the reduct. With the application of EHAR, two representative heuristic attribute reduction algorithms are improved. Several experiments are used to illustrate the proposed EHAR. The experimental results show that the enhanced algorithms with EHAR have a superior performance in achieving the optimal reduct.