# balance_classes¶

• Available in: GBM, DRF, Deep Learning, GLM, Naïve-Bayes, AutoML

• Hyperparameter: yes

## Description¶

During model training, you might find that the majority of your data belongs in a single class. For example, consider a binary classification model that has 100 rows, with 80 rows labeled as class 1 and the remaining 20 rows labeled as class 2. This is a common scenario, given that machine learning attempts to predict class 1 with the highest accuracy. It can also be an example of an imbalanced dataset, in this case, with a ratio of 4:1.

The balance_classes option can be used to balance the class distribution. When enabled, H2O will either undersample the majority classes or oversample the minority classes. Note that the resulting model will also correct the final probabilities (“undo the sampling”) using a monotonic transform, so the predicted probabilities of the first model will differ from a second model. However, because AUC only cares about ordering, it won’t be affected.

If this option is enabled, then you can also specify a value for the class_sampling_factors and max_after_balance_size options to control the sampling.

• class_sampling_factors takes a list of numbers which would be the sampling rate for each class. A value of 1 would not change the sample rate for a class, but setting it to 0.5 would reduce its sampling by half, and 2 would double its sample rate.

• Alternatively, you can utilize max_after_balance_size which is the max relative size your training data can be grown. By default, it is 5: this will oversample the data to rebalance the training data. The max it can grow to is 5x larger than your original data, hence, the value of 5. If you have many rows and prefer to under-sample the majority class, you can set max_after_balance_size to a value of less than 1.

Notes:

• This option is disabled by default.

• This option only applies to classification problems.

• Enabling this option can increase the size of the data frame.

## Example¶

library(h2o)
h2o.init()

# import the covtype dataset:
# this dataset is used to classify the correct forest cover type
# original dataset can be found at https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Covertype
covtype <- h2o.importFile("https://s3.amazonaws.com/h2o-public-test-data/smalldata/covtype/covtype.20k.data")

# convert response column to a factor
covtype[, 55] <- as.factor(covtype[, 55])

# set the predictor names and the response column name
predictors <- colnames(covtype[1:54])
response <- 'C55'

# split into train and validation sets
covtype_splits <- h2o.splitFrame(data =  covtype, ratios = 0.8, seed = 1234)
train <- covtype_splits[[1]]
valid <- covtype_splits[[2]]

# try using the balance_classes parameter (set to TRUE):
cov_gbm <- h2o.gbm(x = predictors, y = response, training_frame = train,
validation_frame = valid, balance_classes = TRUE, seed = 1234)
print(h2o.logloss(cov_gbm, valid = TRUE))

# grid over balance_classes (boolean parameter)
# select the values for balance_classes to grid over
hyper_params <- list( balance_classes = c(TRUE, FALSE) )

# this example uses cartesian grid search because the search space is small
# and we want to see the performance of all models. For a larger search space use
# random grid search instead: {'strategy': "RandomDiscrete"}

# build grid search with previously made GBM and hyperparameters
grid <- h2o.grid(x = predictors, y = response, training_frame = train, validation_frame = valid,
algorithm = "gbm", grid_id = "covtype_grid", hyper_params = hyper_params,
search_criteria = list(strategy = "Cartesian"), seed = 1234)

# Sort the grid models by logloss
sorted_grid <- h2o.getGrid("covtype_grid", sort_by = "logloss", decreasing = FALSE)
sorted_grid

import h2o
h2o.init()
h2o.cluster().show_status()

# import the covtype dataset:
# this dataset is used to classify the correct forest cover type
# original dataset can be found at https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Covertype
covtype = h2o.import_file("https://s3.amazonaws.com/h2o-public-test-data/smalldata/covtype/covtype.20k.data")

# convert response column to a factor
covtype[54] = covtype[54].asfactor()

# set the predictor names and the response column name
predictors = covtype.columns[0:54]
response = 'C55'

# split into train and validation sets
train, valid = covtype.split_frame(ratios = [.8], seed = 1234)

# try using the balance_classes parameter (set to True):
cov_gbm = H2OGradientBoostingEstimator(balance_classes = True, seed = 1234)
cov_gbm.train(x = predictors, y = response, training_frame = train, validation_frame = valid)

print('logloss', cov_gbm.logloss(valid = True))

# grid over balance_classes (boolean parameter)
# import Grid Search
from h2o.grid.grid_search import H2OGridSearch

# select the values for balance_classes to grid over
hyper_params = {'balance_classes': [True, False]}

# this example uses cartesian grid search because the search space is small
# and we want to see the performance of all models. For a larger search space use
# random grid search instead: {'strategy': "RandomDiscrete"}
# initialize the GBM estimator