Optimal Value Estimation of Intentional-Value-Substitution for Learning Regression Models

Abstract

This paper focuses on a method to train a regression model from incomplete input values. It is assumed in this paper that there are no missing values in a training dataset while missing values exist during a prediction phase using the trained model. Under this assumption, we propose Intentional-Value-Substitution (IVS) training to obtain a machine learning model that makes the prediction error as minimum as possible. In IVS training, a model is trained to approximate the target function using a modified training dataset in which some feature values are substituted with a certain value even though their values are not missing. It is shown through a series of computational experiments that the substitution values calculated from a mathematical analysis help the models correctly predict outputs for inputs with missing values.