An Asymmetric Ensemble Method for Determining the Importance of Individual Factors of a Univariate Problem

Abstract

This study proposes an innovative model that determines the importance of selected factors of a univariate problem. The proposed model has been developed based on the example of determining the impact of non-medical factors on the quality of inpatient treatment, but it is generally applicable to any process of binary classification. In addition, an ensemble stacking model that involves the asymmetric use of two different well-known algorithms is proposed to determine the importance of individual factors. This model is constructed so that the standard logistic regression is first applied as mandatory. Further, the classification algorithms are implemented if the defined conditions are met. Finally, feature selection algorithms, which belong to the optimization group of algorithms, are applied as a combinatorial algorithm. The proposed model is verified through a case study conducted using real data obtained from health institutions in the region connected to the city of Nis, Republic of Serbia. The obtained results show that the proposed model can achieve better results than each of the methods included in it and surpasses several state-of-the-art ensemble algorithms in the field of machine learning. The proposed solution has been implemented in the form of a modern mobile application.