Locally Adaptive Nearest Neighbor Algorithms

Four versions of a k-nearest neighbor algorithm with locally adaptive kare introduced and compared to the basic k-nearest neighbor algorithm (kNN). Locally adaptive kNN algorithms choose the value of k that should be used to classify a query by consulting the results of cross-validation computations in the local neighborhood of the query. Local kNN methods are shown to perform similar to kNN in experiments with twelve commonly used data sets. Encouraging resultsin three constructed tasks show that local methods can significantly outperform kNN in specific applications. Local methods can be recommended for online learning and for applications wheredifferent regions of the input space are covered by patterns solving different sub-tasks.