TF-IDF k-mer-based Classical and Hybrid Machine Learning Models for SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classification under Imbalanced Genomic Data
This study demonstrates that a hybrid Random Forest-SVM framework utilizing TF-IDF-based k-mer features outperforms deep learning methods in classifying imbalanced SARS-CoV-2 genomic data, achieving superior macro-averaged F1-scores and robust detection of rare variants.