arXiv AI

MedFeat: Model-Aware and Explainability-Driven Feature Engineering with LLMs for Tabular Prediction

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 31

SymboLLM-FE: LLM-Accelerated Symbolic Regression for Automated Feature Engineering on Tabular Data

SymboLLM-FE combines symbolic regression and large language models to automate feature engineering for tabular data. It first extracts mathematically expressive formulas that correlate strongly with the target, then refines them with LLMs to improve interpretability. Experiments on six real‑world datasets and four Kaggle competitions show that SymboLLM‑FE outperforms existing AutoFE methods while reducing the number of costly LLM calls.

By Zi-Jian Cheng, Zi-Yi Jia, Zhi Zhou, Yu-Feng Li, Lan-Zhe Guo
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 22

From Latent Biomarkers to Clinical Rules: Embedding-Guided Rule Mining and Attribution-Based Translation for Interpretable Tabular Learning

The paper introduces a four-step pipeline that mines decision rules in the latent space of an FT-Transformer and then translates those rules back into measurable clinical features. By treating embedding dimensions that separate patient groups as latent biomarkers, small decision trees are used to extract rules, which are then mapped to raw features using gradient-input saliency and CLS attention attribution. Across six public clinical datasets, the translated rules generally outperformed raw-feature rules, achieving significant AUROC gains, though some high-performing latent rules could not be fully captured by simple raw-feature conditions.

By Majid Lotfian Delouee, Hamed Ayoobi, Sjors G. J. G. In 't Veld, Martijn C. Schut
arXiv AI
Sep 3

General Demographic Pre-trained Models for Enhancing Predictive Performance Across Diseases and Population

The paper introduces the General Demographic Pre-trained (GDP) model, a lightweight foundation model that learns representations from the two most common clinical attributes—age and sex. By optimizing encoding and visit‑reordering strategies, GDP embeddings are shown to improve predictive performance when concatenated with raw features across various disease and geographic cohorts. The model outperforms several state‑of‑the‑art tabular foundation models and tree‑based algorithms, demonstrating that enriched demographic embeddings can enhance classification tasks while remaining fully compatible with standard classifiers.

By Li-Chin Chen, Ji-Tian Sheu, Yuh-Jue Chuang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 21

LLMs as Feature Engineers for Text-and-Tabular Prediction

The paper presents an iterative framework that uses large language models (LLMs) to automatically extract interpretable, schema‑bound categorical features from unstructured text for use in tabular prediction models. A generator LLM proposes semantic definitions, an extractor LLM materializes the features, and a downstream tabular model evaluates their predictive performance, with error‑driven natural‑language feedback guiding the search. Across three public datasets, the error‑driven loop speeds up feature discovery up to three times and the resulting features outperform any subset when combined with TF‑IDF and dense embeddings, while also providing instance‑level interpretability through SHAP importance rankings and a semantic audit trail.

By Merwan Barlier, Blaz Skrlj
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 2

OncoReason: Structuring Clinical Reasoning in LLMs for Robust and Interpretable Survival Prediction

arXiv:2510. 17532v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Predicting cancer treatment outcomes requires models that are both accurate and interpretable, particularly in the presence of heterogeneous clinical data.

By Raghu Vamshi Hemadri, Geetha Krishna Guruju, Kristi Topollai, Anna Ewa Choromanska