通过结构化筛选减少特征工程搜索空间,提速超2.6倍且保持效果。
SCOPE-FE: Structured Control of Operator and Pairwise Exploration for Feature Engineering via Quality-Aware Candidate-Space Reduction

- 先筛选候选空间再生成特征,避免盲目遍历。
- 在10个数据集上平均减少82.9%候选数,最快提速5.48倍。
- 适合追求高效特征工程的机器学习实践者。
自动特征工程可通过生成多样化特征变换提升表格数据预测性能。然而,输入特征与操作符组合导致的候选空间随维度激增,带来巨大计算开销。本文提出SCOPE-FE框架,在候选生成前控制搜索空间。该方法结合特征聚类(FeatureClustering)与基于混合类型特征关联的结构化配对门控,以及针对数据集的算子使用度控制(OperatorProbing),聚焦于更小、数据依赖的候选池。在10个OpenFE基准数据集上,SCOPE-FE实现中位82.9%的候选空间压缩,所有数据集均降低组件总特征工程耗时,几何平均加速2.66倍,最大加速5.48倍。尽管缩减,其在8个数据集上仍处于OpenFE实用等效范围内。全面候选审计显示,8个数据集的候选质量高于均匀随机预期,中位增强1.35倍;相较Random-Pair,在6个数据集上表现更优(5个显著);相较Random-Operator和Random-Joint,在8个数据集上表现更优(各8个显著)。结果表明,生成前搜索空间控制可大幅降低特征工程时间,同时保留高质量候选池。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Automatic feature engineering can improve predictive performance on tabular data by generating diverse feature transformations. However, the candidate space induced by combinations of input features and operators grows rapidly with dimensionality, resulting in substantial computational cost. We propose SCOPE-FE, a framework that controls the search space before candidate generation. SCOPE-FE combines FeatureClustering, a structural pair gate based on mixed-type feature association, with OperatorProbing, a dataset-specific utility control over operators. Unlike conventional expand-and-reduce approaches that generate a large candidate set and prune it afterward, SCOPE-FE focuses computation on a smaller, data-dependent candidate pool. Across ten OpenFE benchmark datasets, SCOPE-FE achieves a median candidate-space reduction of 82.9% and lowers component-summed feature-engineering time-including separately measured FeatureClustering overhead-on all ten datasets, yielding a geometric-mean speedup of 2.66x and a maximum speedup of 5.48x. Despite this reduction, SCOPE-FE is within the stated practical-equivalence margin of OpenFE on 8 of 10 datasets. An exhaustive candidate audit shows enrichment above uniform-random expectation on 8 of 10 datasets, with a median enrichment of 1.35x. Against Random-Pair, SCOPE-FE has higher enrichment on 6 of 10 datasets, with 5 of 10 significant; against Random-Operator and Random-Joint, it has higher enrichment on 8 of 10 datasets, with 8 of 10 significant for each. These results demonstrate that pre-generation search-space control can substantially reduce feature-engineering time while retaining a utility-enriched candidate pool under the OpenFE-compatible evaluation protocol.
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