Multi-concept Document Classification Using a Perceptron-Like Algorithm

Previous work in hierarchical categorization focuses on the hierarchical perceptron (Hieron) algorithm. Hierarchical perceptron works on the principles of the perceptron,that is each class label in the hierarchy has an associated weight vector. To account for the hierarchy, we begin at the root of the tree and sum all weights to the target label.We make a prediction by considering the label that yields the maximum inner product of its feature set with its path-summed weights. Learning is done by adjusting the weights along the path from the predicted node to the correct node by a specific loss function that adheres to the large margin principal. There are several problems with applying this approach to a multiple class problem. In many cases we could end up punishing weights that gave a correct prediction, because the algorithm can only take a single case at a time. In this paper we present an extended hierarchical perceptron algorithm capable of solving the multiple categorization problem (MultiHieron). We introduce new aggregate loss function for multiple label learning. We make weight updates simultaneously instead of serially. Then, significant improvement over the basic Hieron algorithm is demonstrated on the aviation safety reporting system (ASRS) flight anomaly database and OntoNews corpus using both flat and hierarchical categorization metrics.