A Genetic Algorithm Search Heuristic for Belief Rule-Based Model-Structure Validation

In this paper, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) search heuristic is proposed for validating the model-structure of Belief Rule-Based (BRB) methodologies. In order to ensure the balance between the model fit/ accuracy and the model complexity, the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) is used in conjunction with the mentioned heuristic. The resulting framework is tested, using a model consisting of 3 inputs and one output, each of the 4 variables being allocated up to 5 referential values. The presented results illustrate the time-efficiency of the GA heuristic, as well as the penalty imposed by AIC on the number of parameters. The simplest model structure is indicated by AIC to be the optimal one. However, three additional model structures have been found to have AIC values which are moderately close to this optimum. An analysis of their coefficients of determination indicates a higher fit (than AIC optimum) on both testing sets and overall.