Expected Confidence Dependency: A Novel Rough Set-Based Approach to Feature Selection

Abstract: This paper proposes Expected Confidence Dependency (ECD), a novel, soft computing-oriented, accuracy driven dependency measure for feature selection within the rough set theory framework. Unlike traditional rough set dependency measures that rely on binary characterizations of conditional blocks, ECD assigns confidence-based contributions to individual equivalence blocks and aggregates them through a normalized expectation operator. We formally establish several desirable properties of ECD, including normalization, compatibility with classical dependency, monotonicity, and invariance under structural and label-preserving transformations.