reduct, even when there is only a slight inconsis-
tency in the classification. Therefore, more attri-
butes have to be added to B to separate the
misclassified object(s) from the others. As a result,
relative reducts from noisy decision systems contain
many condition attributes to cover the given classi-
fication for all objects of the positive region. More-
over, a high number of re lative reducts can be found
and these relative reducts are not stable when new
objects are added to the decision system.
To overcome these drawbacks, Ziarko [21] devel-
oped an extension of the RST, the variable precision
rough set model (VPRS model). The basic idea of this
model is to allow a small, previously defined classi-
fication error. Some fundamentals of the VPRS
model are introduced in the following.
Let X be a d-elementary set and Y a B-elementary
set (B C). The relative classification error c(Y, X)is
defined as:
cðY; XÞ¼1
jY \ Xj
jYj
; if jYj > 0
cðY; XÞ¼0 else:
; (5)
For a previously selected admissible classification
error b (0 b < 0.5), the b-B-lower approximation
of X is given by:
INDðBÞ
b
X ¼
[
Y 2 U=INDðBÞ : cðY; XÞbfg
The b-B-positive region of decision attribute d is
defined analogue to the definition in RST as:
POSðB; d; bÞ¼
[
X 2 U=INDðfdgÞ
INDðBÞ
b
X;
and also the degree of dependency as:
gðB;d; b Þ¼
jPOSðB; d; bÞj
jUj
:
A set of condition attributes R C is called a b-
relative reduct if [21]
1: g R; d; bðÞ¼g C; d; bðÞand (6a)
2: no attribute can be eliminated from R without
affecting the requirement 1 (6b)
Example 1. Consider the decision table presented
in Ta b le 1 . In t he RST the C-positive region is
POS(C, d)={x
6
, x
7
} and one relative reduct can
be fou nd: {c
1
, c
3
}. The calculation of the b-C-
positive region in the VPRS model with b = 0.35
yields PO S(C, d, b)={x
1
, x
2
, x
3
, x
6
, x
7
}, and
gðB; d; bÞ¼5=7. Object x
3
can be assigned to the
decision d = 1 with a relative classification error of
0.333. The objects x
4
and x
5
are still not elements
of the positive region. Condition attribute c
3
is
sufficient to assign the o bjects of the b-C-positive
region to a decision concerning the admissible
classification error.
Note, that the positive region in VPRS model
comprises not only the objects that can be classified
correctly, but also all objects of C-elementary sets
that can be classified with respect to the admissible
classification error b.
A common way to apply the VPRS model to a
decision system is — after selection of a value for b —
to replace the decisions for the C-elementary sets
which do not belong to the positive region according
to the RST (e.g. [22]): If an elementary set Y can be
assigned to a decision with a relative classification
error smaller than b, then the values of the decision
attribute are set to the same decision for all objects
of Y. In this case, the objects of Yare elements of the
C-b-positive region according to the VPRS model.
Otherwise, these objects are marked by setting the
decision to ‘‘BND’’ indicating the boundary region.
As a result, the previous probabilistic decision
table is turned into a deterministic one and can be
handled with the methods of the original RST. For
b = 0.35 the Table 1 turns to the decision table
presented in Table 2.
All equations of the RST hold for this new decision
table and all methods can be applied without any
restrictions. Relative core, relative reducts and
decision rules can be calculated as descri bed in
the previous section. The idea of the VPRS model
is applied by performing a pre-processing step
before carrying out original RST metho ds.
This approach of the VPRS model was applied to
several application areas and published in several
papers, e.g. [18,23,24].
Adapted variable precision rough set approach for EEG analysis 243
Table 1 Decision table to compare relative reducts
according to RST and VPRS model.
Uc
1
c
2
c
3
d
x
1
1121
x
2
1121
x
3
1122
x
4
1231
x
5
1232
x
6
2112
x
7
2121
Table 2 Decision table with changed class informa-
tion by VPRS model.
Uc
1
c
2
c
3
d
new
x
1
1121
x
2
1121
x
3
1121
x
4
1 2 3 BND
x
5
1 2 3 BND
x
6
2112
x
7
2121