Hierarchical multi-label classification incorporating prior information for gene function prediction

This paper proposes an improved Hierarchical Multi-label Classification (HMC) method for solving the gene function prediction. The HMC task is transferred into a series of binary SVM classification tasks. By introducing the hierarchy constraint into learning procedures, two measures with incorporating prior information are implemented to improve the HMC performance. Firstly, for imbalanced functional classes, a hierarchical SMOTE is proposed as over-sampling preprocessing to improve the SVM learning performance. Secondly, an improved True Path Rule consistency approach is introduced to ensemble the results of binary probabilistic SVM classifications. It can improve the classification results and guarantee the hierarchy constraint of classes.