Represents a space for encoding categorical similarity. A CategoricalSimilaritySpace is designed to measure the similarity between items that are grouped into a finite number of textual categories. The categories are represented in an n-hot encoded vector, with the option to apply a negative filter for unmatched categories, enhancing the distinction between matching and non-matching category items.

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Constructor

CategoricalSimilaritySpace(category_input, categories, negative_filter=0.0, uncategorized_as_category=True)

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Parameters

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category_input
String | StringList | list[String | StringList]
required
The schema field containing input categories to be considered in the similarity space. Input contains one or more categories in a list if StringList is provided. If String is provided, then the input must be a single value.
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categories
list[str]
required
A list of all the recognized categories. Categories not included in this list will be treated as ‘other’, unless uncategorized_as_category is False.
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negative_filter
float
default:"0.0"
A value used to represent unmatched categories in the encoding process. This allows for a penalizing non-matching categories - in contrast to them contributing 0 to similarity, it is possible to influence the similarity score negatively. Defaults to 0.0.
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uncategorized_as_category
bool
default:"True"
Determines whether categories not listed in categories should be treated as a distinct ‘other’ category. Defaults to True.
Raises: InvalidInputException - If a schema object does not have a corresponding node in the similarity space, indicating a configuration or implementation error.

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Behavior

Negative_filter allows for filtering out unmatched categories, by setting it to a large negative value, effectively resulting in large negative similarity between non-matching category items. A category input not present in categories will be encoded as other category. These categories will be similar to each other by default. Set uncategorized_as_category parameter to False in order to suppress this behavior - this way other categories are not similar to each other in any case - not even to the same other category. To make that specific category value similar to only the same category items, consider adding it to categories.

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Inheritance

Inheritance Chain:
  • CategoricalSimilaritySpace
  • → Space
  • → HasTransformationConfig
  • → HasLength
  • → Generic
  • → HasSpaceFieldSet
  • → ABC

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Properties

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category
SpaceFieldSet
The space field set containing the category fields.
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space_field_set
SpaceFieldSet
The space field set for this categorical similarity space.
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transformation_config
TransformationConfig[Vector, list[str]]
Configuration for transforming category lists into vectors.
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uncategorized_as_category
bool
Whether uncategorized items should be treated as a distinct category.