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ABSTRACT

The main problems in text classification are lack of labeled data, as well as the cost of labeling the unlabeled data. We address these problems by exploring co-training - an algorithm that uses unlabeled data along with a few labeled examples to boost the performance of a classifier. We experiment with co-training on the email domain. Our results show that the performance of co-training depends on the learning algorithm it uses. In particular, Support Vector Machines significantly outperforms Naive Bayes on email classification.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.5 PATTERN RECOGNITION
      I.5.2 Design Methodology
          Subjects: Classifier design and evaluation

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.6 Learning
          Subjects: Knowledge acquisition

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation, Measurement, Performance, Theory