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CaTabRa is a Python package for analyzing tabular data in a largely automated way. This includes generating descriptive statistics, creating out-of-distribution detectors, training prediction models for classification and regression tasks, and evaluating/explaining/applying these models on unseen data.

CaTabRa is both a command-line tool and a library, which means it can be easily integrated into other projects.

Clone the repository and install the package with Poetry. Set up a new Python environment with Python >=3.9, <3.11 (e.g. using conda), activate it, and then run

pip install poetry

(unless Poetry has been installed already) and

git clone https://github.com/risc-mi/catabra.git
cd catabra
poetry install

The project is installed in editable mode by default. This is useful if you plan to make changes to CaTabRa's code.

IMPORTANT: CaTabRa currently only runs on Linux, because auto-sklearn only runs on Linux. If on Windows, you can use a virtual machine, like WSL 2, and install CaTabRa there. If you want to use Jupyter, install Jupyter on the virtual machine as well and launch it with the --no-browser flag.

python -m catabra analyze example_data/breast_cancer.csv --classify diagnosis --split train --out breast_cancer_result

This command analyzes breast_cancer.csv and trains a prediction model for classifying the samples according to column "diagnosis". Column "train" is used for splitting the data into a train- and a test set, which means that the final model is automatically evaluated on the test set after training. All results are saved in directory breast_cancer_out.

python -m catabra explain breast_cancer_result --on example_data/breast_cancer.csv --out breast_cancer_result/expl

This command explains the classifier trained in the previous command by computing SHAP feature importance scores for every sample. The results are saved in directory breast_cancer_result/expl. Depending on the type of the trained models, this command may take several minutes to complete.

The two commands above translate to the following Python code:

from catabra.analysis import analyze
from catabra.explanation import explain

analyze("example_data/breast_cancer.csv", classify="diagnosis", split="train", out="breast_cancer_result")
explain("example_data/breast_cancer.csv", "breast_cancer_result", out="breast_cancer_result/expl")

Invoking the two commands generates a bunch of results, most notably

• the trained classifier
• descriptive statistics of the underlying data
  
• performance metrics in tabular and graphical form
  
• feature importance scores in tabular and graphical form
  
• ... and many more.

The source notebooks for all our examples can be found in the examples folder.

• Workflow.ipynb
  • Analyze data with a binary target
  • Train a high-quality classifier with automatic model selection and hyperparameter tuning
  • Investigate the final classifier and the training history
  • Calibrate the classifier on dedicated calibration data
  • Evaluate the classifier on held-out test data
  • Explain the classifier by computing SHAP- and permutation importance scores
  • Apply the classifier to new samples
• Longitudinal.ipynb
  • Process longitudinal data by resampling into "samples x features" format

• Prediction-Tasks.ipynb
  • Binary classification
  • Multiclass classification
  • Multilabel classification
  • Regression
• House-Sales-Regression.ipynb
  • Predicting house prices
• Performance-Metrics.ipynb
  • Change hyperparameter optimization objective
  • Specify metrics to calculate during model training
• Plotting.ipynb
  • Create plots in Python
  • Create interactive plots
• AutoML-Config.ipynb
  • General configuration
    • Ensemble size
    • Time- and Memory budget
    • Number of parallel jobs
  • Auto-Sklearn-specific configuration
    • Model classes and preprocessing steps
    • Resampling strategies for internal validation
    • Grouped splitting
• Fixed-Pipeline.ipynb
  • Specify fixed ML pipeline (no automatic hyperparameter optimization)
  • Manually configure hyperparameters
  • Suitable for creating baseline models

• AutoML-Extension.ipynb
  • Add new AutoML backend
• Explanation-Extension.ipynb
  • Add new explanation backend
• OOD-Extension.ipynb
  • Add new OOD detection backend

API Documentation as well as detailed documentation for a couple of specific aspects of CaTabRa, like its command-line interface, available performance metrics, built-in OOD-detectors and model explanation details can be found on our ReadTheDocs.

If you use CaTabRa in your research, we would appreciate citing the following conference paper:

• A. Maletzky, S. Kaltenleithner, P. Moser and M. Giretzlehner. CaTabRa: Efficient Analysis and Predictive Modeling of Tabular Data. In: I. Maglogiannis, L. Iliadis, J. MacIntyre and M. Dominguez (eds), Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations (AIAI 2023). IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 676, pp 57-68, 2023. DOI:10.1007/978-3-031-34107-6_5

  @inproceedings{CaTabRa2023,
    author = {Maletzky, Alexander and Kaltenleithner, Sophie and Moser, Philipp and Giretzlehner, Michael},
    editor = {Maglogiannis, Ilias and Iliadis, Lazaros and MacIntyre, John and Dominguez, Manuel},
    title = {{CaTabRa}: Efficient Analysis and Predictive Modeling of Tabular Data},
    booktitle = {Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations},
    year = {2023},
    publisher = {Springer Nature Switzerland},
    address = {Cham},
    pages = {57--68},
    isbn = {978-3-031-34107-6},
    doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-34107-6_5}
  }
  

The following publications used CaTabRa for data analysis and model development:

• N. Stroh, H. Stefanits, A. Maletzky, S. Kaltenleithner, S. Thumfart, M. Giretzlehner, R. Drexler, F. Ricklefs, L. Dührsen, S. Aspalter, P. Rauch, A. Gruber and M. Gmeiner. Machine learning based outcome prediction of microsurgically treated unruptured intracranial aneurysms. Scientific Reports 13:22641, 2023. DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-50012-8
• T. Tschoellitsch, P. Moser, A. Maletzky, P. Seidl, C. Böck, T. Roland, H. Ludwig, S. Süssner, S. Hochreiter and J. Meier. Potential Predictors for Deterioration of Renal Function After Transfusion. Anesthesia & Analgesia 138(3):145-154, 2024. DOI:10.1213/ANE.0000000000006720
• T. Tschoellitsch, A. Maletzky, P. Moser, P. Seidl, C. Böck, T. Tomic Mahečić, S. Thumfart, M. Giretzlehner, S. Hochreiter and J. Meier. Machine Learning Prediction of Unsafe Discharge from Intensive Care: a retrospective cohort study. submitted

If you have any inquiries, please open a GitHub issue.

This project is financed by research subsidies granted by the government of Upper Austria. RISC Software GmbH is Member of UAR (Upper Austrian Research) Innovation Network.