Efficient discretization algorithm for continuous attributes

On analysis of the cut points characteristic of entropy-based discretization,an attribute discretization algorithm based on boundary points' attribute values mergence and inconsistency check is presented.Compared with the traditional discretization algorithms,the proposed method only merges the boundary points' attribute values,auto-generates cut points' number without setting them in advance,applies simple rules to merge the intervals,and reduces the computational cost greatly.It is suitable for large scale and high dimension database discretization problems.By applying inconsistency to check the chosen cut points set,the algorithm possesses global property.Experiments show that the method can improve the simplicity and the prediction precision of classifying rules.