Categorical Attribute traNsformation Environment (CANE): A python module for categorical to numeric data preprocessing[Formula presented]

Abstract

Categorical Attribute traNsformation Environment (CANE) is a simpler but powerful data categorical preprocessing Python package. The package is valuable since there is currently a large range of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms that can only be trained using numerical data (e.g., Deep Learning, Support Vector Machines) and several real-world ML applications are associated with categorical data attributes. Currently, CANE offers three categorical to numeric transformation methods, namely: Percentage Categorical Pruned (PCP), Inverse Document Frequency (IDF) and a simpler One-Hot-Encoding method. Additionally, the CANE module is well documented with several code examples that can help in its adoption by non expert users.