Feature Selection

Featuretools provides users with the ability to remove features that are unlikely to be useful in building an effective machine learning model. Reducing the number of features in the feature matrix can both produce better results in the model as well as reduce the computational cost involved in prediction.

Featuretools enables users to perform feature selection on the results of Deep Feature Synthesis with three functions:

  • ft.selection.remove_highly_null_features

  • ft.selection.remove_single_value_features

  • ft.selection.remove_highly_correlated_features

We will describe each of these functions in depth, but first we must create an entity set with which we can run ft.dfs.

[1]:
import pandas as pd
import featuretools as ft

from featuretools.selection import (
    remove_highly_correlated_features,
    remove_highly_null_features,
    remove_single_value_features,
)

from featuretools.primitives import NaturalLanguage
from featuretools.demo.flight import load_flight

es = load_flight(nrows=50)
es
Downloading data ...
[1]:
Entityset: Flight Data
  DataFrames:
    trip_logs [Rows: 50, Columns: 21]
    flights [Rows: 6, Columns: 9]
    airlines [Rows: 1, Columns: 1]
    airports [Rows: 4, Columns: 3]
  Relationships:
    trip_logs.flight_id -> flights.flight_id
    flights.carrier -> airlines.carrier
    flights.dest -> airports.dest

Remove Highly Null Features

We might have a dataset with columns that have many null values. Deep Feature Synthesis might build features off of those null columns, creating even more highly null features. In this case, we might want to remove any features whose null values pass a certain threshold. Below is our feature matrix with such a case:

[2]:
fm, features = ft.dfs(entityset=es,
                          target_dataframe_name="trip_logs",
                          cutoff_time=pd.DataFrame({
                              'trip_log_id':[30, 1, 2, 3, 4],
                              'time':pd.to_datetime(['2016-09-22 00:00:00']*5)
                                                  }),
                          trans_primitives=[],
                          agg_primitives=[],
                          max_depth=2)
fm
[2]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time distance carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 600.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
1 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
2 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
3 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
4 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

We look at the above feature matrix and decide to remove the highly null features

[3]:
ft.selection.remove_highly_null_features(fm)
[3]:
flight_id distance flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT 600.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
1 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
2 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
3 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
4 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

Notice that calling remove_highly_null_features didn’t remove every feature that contains a null value. By default, we only remove features where the percentage of null values in the calculated feature matrix is above 95%. If we want to lower that threshold, we can set the pct_null_threshold paramter ourselves.

[4]:
remove_highly_null_features(fm, pct_null_threshold=.2)
[4]:
trip_log_id
30
1
2
3
4

Remove Single Value Features

Another situation we might run into is one where our calculated features don’t have any variance. In those cases, we are likely to want to remove the uninteresting features. For that, we use remove_single_value_features.

Let’s see what happens when we remove the single value features of the feature matrix below.

[5]:
fm
[5]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time distance carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 600.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
1 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
2 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
3 AA-494:CLT->PHX NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN 1773.0 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
4 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN <NA> NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

Note

A list of feature definitions such as those created by dfs can be provided to the feature selection functions. Doing this will change the outputs to include an updated list of feature definitions.

[6]:
new_fm, new_features = remove_single_value_features(fm, features=features)
new_fm
[6]:
flight_id distance flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT 600.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 Charlotte, NC NC
1 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 Phoenix, AZ AZ
2 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 Phoenix, AZ AZ
3 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 Phoenix, AZ AZ
4 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

Now that we have the features definitions for the updated feature matrix, we can see that the features that were removed are:

[7]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[7]:
{<Feature: air_time>,
 <Feature: arr_delay>,
 <Feature: canceled>,
 <Feature: carrier_delay>,
 <Feature: dep_delay>,
 <Feature: diverted>,
 <Feature: flights.carrier>,
 <Feature: flights.flight_num>,
 <Feature: late_aircraft_delay>,
 <Feature: national_airspace_delay>,
 <Feature: security_delay>,
 <Feature: taxi_in>,
 <Feature: taxi_out>,
 <Feature: weather_delay>}

With the function used as it is above, null values are not considered when counting a feature’s unique values. If we’d like to consider NaN its own value, we can set count_nan_as_value to True and we’ll see flights.carrier and flights.flight_num back in the matrix.

[8]:
new_fm, new_features = remove_single_value_features(fm, features=features, count_nan_as_value=True)
new_fm
[8]:
flight_id distance flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT 600.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
1 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
2 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
3 AA-494:CLT->PHX 1773.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC PHX 8 AA 494 Phoenix, AZ AZ
4 NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN

The features that were removed are:

[9]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[9]:
{<Feature: air_time>,
 <Feature: arr_delay>,
 <Feature: canceled>,
 <Feature: carrier_delay>,
 <Feature: dep_delay>,
 <Feature: diverted>,
 <Feature: late_aircraft_delay>,
 <Feature: national_airspace_delay>,
 <Feature: security_delay>,
 <Feature: taxi_in>,
 <Feature: taxi_out>,
 <Feature: weather_delay>}

Remove Highly Correlated Features

The last feature selection function we have allows us to remove features that would likely be redundant to the model we’re attempting to build by considering the correlation between pairs of calculated features.

When two features are determined to be highly correlated, we remove the more complex of the two. For example, say we have two features: col and -(col).

We can see that -(col) is just the negation of col, and so we can guess those features are going to be highly correlated. -(col) has has the Negate primitive applied to it, so it is more complex than the identity feature col. Therefore, if we only want one of col and -(col), we should keep the identity feature. For features that don’t have an obvious difference in complexity, we discard the feature that comes later in the feature matrix.

Let’s try this out on our data:

[10]:
fm, features = ft.dfs(entityset=es,
                          target_dataframe_name="trip_logs",
                          trans_primitives=['negate'],
                          agg_primitives=[],
                          max_depth=3)
fm.head()
[10]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time distance carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled -(air_time) -(arr_delay) -(carrier_delay) -(dep_delay) -(distance) -(late_aircraft_delay) -(national_airspace_delay) -(security_delay) -(taxi_in) -(taxi_out) -(weather_delay) flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT -11.0 12.0 10.0 -12.0 False 88.0 600.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -88.0 12.0 -0.0 11.0 -600.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -10.0 -12.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
38 AA-495:ATL->PHX -6.0 28.0 5.0 1.0 False 224.0 1587.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -224.0 -1.0 -0.0 6.0 -1587.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -5.0 -28.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ
46 AA-495:CLT->ATL -2.0 18.0 8.0 -3.0 False 50.0 226.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -50.0 3.0 -0.0 2.0 -226.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -8.0 -18.0 -0.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC ATL 1 AA 495 Atlanta, GA GA
31 AA-494:RSW->CLT 0.0 11.0 10.0 -3.0 False 87.0 600.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -87.0 3.0 -0.0 -0.0 -600.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -10.0 -11.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
39 AA-495:ATL->PHX -4.0 26.0 3.0 10.0 False 235.0 1587.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -235.0 -10.0 -0.0 4.0 -1587.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -3.0 -26.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ

Note that we have some pretty clear correlations here between all the features and their negations.

Now, using remove_highly_correlated_features, our default threshold for correlation is 95% correlated, and we get all of the obviously correlated features removed, leaving just the less complex features.

[11]:
new_fm, new_features = remove_highly_correlated_features(fm, features=features)
new_fm.head()
[11]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled -(security_delay) -(weather_delay) flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT -11.0 12.0 10.0 -12.0 False 88.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
38 AA-495:ATL->PHX -6.0 28.0 5.0 1.0 False 224.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ
46 AA-495:CLT->ATL -2.0 18.0 8.0 -3.0 False 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC ATL 1 AA 495 Atlanta, GA GA
31 AA-494:RSW->CLT 0.0 11.0 10.0 -3.0 False 87.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
39 AA-495:ATL->PHX -4.0 26.0 3.0 10.0 False 235.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ

The features that were removed are:

[12]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[12]:
{<Feature: -(national_airspace_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(air_time)>,
 <Feature: -(carrier_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(dep_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(distance)>,
 <Feature: distance>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_out)>,
 <Feature: -(late_aircraft_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(arr_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_in)>}

Change the correlation threshold

We can lower the threshold at which to remove correlated features if we’d like to be more restrictive by using the pct_corr_threshold parameter.

[13]:
new_fm , new_features = remove_highly_correlated_features(fm, features=features, pct_corr_threshold=.9)
new_fm.head()
[13]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time carrier_delay weather_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled -(security_delay) -(weather_delay) flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT -11.0 12.0 10.0 -12.0 False 88.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
38 AA-495:ATL->PHX -6.0 28.0 5.0 1.0 False 224.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ
46 AA-495:CLT->ATL -2.0 18.0 8.0 -3.0 False 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC ATL 1 AA 495 Atlanta, GA GA
31 AA-494:RSW->CLT 0.0 11.0 10.0 -3.0 False 87.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
39 AA-495:ATL->PHX -4.0 26.0 3.0 10.0 False 235.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ

The features that were removed are:

[14]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[14]:
{<Feature: -(national_airspace_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(carrier_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(air_time)>,
 <Feature: national_airspace_delay>,
 <Feature: -(dep_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(distance)>,
 <Feature: distance>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_out)>,
 <Feature: -(late_aircraft_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(arr_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_in)>}

Check a Subset of Features

If we only want to check a subset of features, we can set features_to_check to the list of features whose correlation we’d like to check, and no features outside of that list will be removed.

[15]:
new_fm, new_features = remove_highly_correlated_features(fm, features=features, features_to_check=['air_time', 'distance', 'flights.distance_group'])
new_fm.head()
[15]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled -(air_time) -(arr_delay) -(carrier_delay) -(dep_delay) -(distance) -(late_aircraft_delay) -(national_airspace_delay) -(security_delay) -(taxi_in) -(taxi_out) -(weather_delay) flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT -11.0 12.0 10.0 -12.0 False 88.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -88.0 12.0 -0.0 11.0 -600.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -10.0 -12.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
38 AA-495:ATL->PHX -6.0 28.0 5.0 1.0 False 224.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -224.0 -1.0 -0.0 6.0 -1587.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -5.0 -28.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ
46 AA-495:CLT->ATL -2.0 18.0 8.0 -3.0 False 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -50.0 3.0 -0.0 2.0 -226.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -8.0 -18.0 -0.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC ATL 1 AA 495 Atlanta, GA GA
31 AA-494:RSW->CLT 0.0 11.0 10.0 -3.0 False 87.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -87.0 3.0 -0.0 -0.0 -600.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -10.0 -11.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
39 AA-495:ATL->PHX -4.0 26.0 3.0 10.0 False 235.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -235.0 -10.0 -0.0 4.0 -1587.0 -0.0 -0.0 -0.0 -3.0 -26.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ

The features that were removed are:

[16]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[16]:
{<Feature: distance>}

Protect Features from Removal

To protect specific features from being removed from the feature matrix, we can include a list of features_to_keep, and these features will not be removed

[17]:
new_fm, new_features = remove_highly_correlated_features(fm, features=features, features_to_keep=['air_time', 'distance', 'flights.distance_group'])
new_fm.head()
[17]:
flight_id dep_delay taxi_out taxi_in arr_delay diverted air_time distance carrier_delay weather_delay national_airspace_delay security_delay late_aircraft_delay canceled -(security_delay) -(weather_delay) flights.origin flights.origin_city flights.origin_state flights.dest flights.distance_group flights.carrier flights.flight_num flights.airports.dest_city flights.airports.dest_state
trip_log_id
30 AA-494:RSW->CLT -11.0 12.0 10.0 -12.0 False 88.0 600.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
38 AA-495:ATL->PHX -6.0 28.0 5.0 1.0 False 224.0 1587.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ
46 AA-495:CLT->ATL -2.0 18.0 8.0 -3.0 False 50.0 226.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 CLT Charlotte, NC NC ATL 1 AA 495 Atlanta, GA GA
31 AA-494:RSW->CLT 0.0 11.0 10.0 -3.0 False 87.0 600.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 RSW Fort Myers, FL FL CLT 3 AA 494 Charlotte, NC NC
39 AA-495:ATL->PHX -4.0 26.0 3.0 10.0 False 235.0 1587.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 False -0.0 -0.0 ATL Atlanta, GA GA PHX 7 AA 495 Phoenix, AZ AZ

The features that were removed are:

[18]:
set(features) - set(new_features)
[18]:
{<Feature: -(national_airspace_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(air_time)>,
 <Feature: -(dep_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(carrier_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(distance)>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_out)>,
 <Feature: -(late_aircraft_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(arr_delay)>,
 <Feature: -(taxi_in)>}