Table of Contents

4.1.2 Test Expenditures and Error Rates as Functions of the Penalty for Errors


4.1.3 Execution Time

In essence, ICET works by invoking C4.5 1000 times (Section 3.5). Fortunately, Quinlan's (1992) implementation of C4.5 is quite fast. Table 6 shows the run-times for the algorithms, using a single-processor Sun Sparc 10. One full experiment takes about one week (roughly 23 minutes for an average run, multiplied by 5 datasets, multiplied by 10 random splits, multiplied by 7 misclassification error costs equals about one week). Since genetic algorithms can easily be executed in parallel, there is substantial room for speed increase with a parallel machine. Each generation consists of 50 individuals, which could be evaluated in parallel, reducing the average run-time to about half a minute.


4.2 Robustness of ICET