UNIT I

What motivated data mining? Why is it important?

The major reason that data mining has attracted a great deal of attention in information
industry in recent years is due to the wide availability of huge amounts of data and
the imminent need for turning such data into useful information and knowledge.
The information and knowledge gained can be used for applications ranging from
business management, production control, and market analysis, to engineering design
and science exploration.
Data collection and Database Creation
The evolution of database technology (1960s and earlier)
Primitive file processing

Database Management Systems

(1970s-early 1980s)
1) Hierarchical and network database system
2) Relational database system
3) Data modeling tools: entity-relational models, etc
4) Indexing and accessing methods: B-trees, hashing etc.
5) Query languages: SQL, etc.
User Interfaces, forms and reports
6) Query Processing and Query Optimization
7) Transactions, concurrency control and recovery
8) Online transaction Processing (OLTP)
Advanced Database Systems Advanced Data Analysis: Web based databases
(mid 1980s-present) Data warehousing and Data mining (1990s-present)
1) Advanced Data models: (late 1980s-present) 1) XML- based database
Extended relational, 1)Data warehouse and OLAP systems
object- relational ,etc. 2)Data mining and knowledge 2)Integration with
2) Advanced applications; discovery:generalization,classification,associ information retrieval
Spatial, temporal, ation,clustering,frequent pattern, outlier 3)Data and information
multimedia, active stream analysis, etc Integration
and sensor, knowledge 3)Advanced data mining applications:
based Stream data mining,bio-data mining, text
mining, web mining etc

New Generation of Integrated Data and Information Systems(present future)

What is data mining?

Data mining refers to extracting or mining" knowledge from large amounts of data.
There are many other terms related to data mining, such as knowledge mining,
knowledge
extraction, data/pattern analysis, data archaeology, and data dredging. Many people treat
data mining as a synonym for another popularly used term, Knowledge Discovery
in Databases", or KDD
Essential step in the process of knowledge discovery in databases

Knowledge discovery as a process is depicted in following figure and consists of

an iterative sequence of the following steps:

 data cleaning: to remove noise or irrelevant data

 data integration: where multiple data sources may be combined
 data selection: where data relevant to the analysis task are retrieved from the
database
 data transformation: where data are transformed or consolidated into forms

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 appropriate for mining by performing summary or aggregation operations
 data mining :an essential process where intelligent methods are applied in order to
extract data patterns
 pattern evaluation to identify the truly interesting patterns representing knowledge
based on some interestingness measures
 knowledge presentation: where visualization and knowledge representation
techniques are used to present the mined knowledge to the user.

Architecture of a typical data mining system/Major Components

Data mining is the process of discovering interesting knowledge from large amounts
of data stored either in databases, data warehouses, or other information repositories.
Based on this view, the architecture of a typical data mining system may have the
following major components:

1. A database, data warehouse, or other information repository, which consists

of the set of databases, data warehouses, spreadsheets, or other kinds
of information repositories containing the student and course information.
2. A database or data warehouse server which fetches the relevant data based on
users‘ data mining requests.
3. A knowledge base that contains the domain knowledge used to guide the search
or to evaluate the interestingness of resulting patterns. For example, the
knowledge base may contain metadata which describes data from multiple
heterogeneous sources.
4. A data mining engine, which consists of a set of functional modules for tasks
such as classification, association, classification, cluster analysis, and
evolution and deviation analysis.
5. A pattern evaluation module that works in tandem with the data
mining modules by employing interestingness measures to help focus
the search towards interestingness patterns.
6. A graphical user interface that allows the user an interactive approach to the data
mining system.

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How is a data warehouse different from a database? How are they similar?

• Differences between a data warehouse and a database: A data warehouse is a repository

of information collected from multiple sources, over a history of time, stored under
a unified schema, and used for data analysis and decision support; whereas a database, is
a collection of interrelated data that represents the current status of the stored data.
There could be multiple heterogeneous databases where the schema of one database
may not agree with the schema of another. A database system supports ad-hoc query
and on-line transaction processing. For more details, please refer to the section
―Differences between operational database systems and data warehouses.‖

• Similarities between a data warehouse and a database: Both are repositories of

information, storing huge amounts of persistent data.

Data mining: on what kind of data? / Describe the following advanced

database systems and applications: object-relational databases, spatial
databases, text databases, multimedia databases, the World Wide Web.

In principle, data mining should be applicable to any kind of information repository.

This includes relational databases, data warehouses, transactional databases,
advanced database systems,
flat files, and the World-Wide Web. Advanced database systems include object-
oriented and object-relational databases, and special c application-oriented databases,
such as spatial databases, time-series databases, text databases, and multimedia databases.

Flat files: Flat files are actually the most common data source for data mining
algorithms, especially at the research level. Flat files are simple data files in text or binary
format with a structure known by the data mining algorithm to be applied. The data in
these files can be transactions, time-series data, scientific measurements, etc.

Relational Databases: a relational database consists of a set of tables containing

either values of entity attributes, or values of attributes from entity relationships.
Tables have columns and rows, where columns represent attributes and rows represent
tuples. A tuple in a relational table corresponds to either an object or a relationship
between objects and is identified by a set of attribute values representing a unique
key. In following figure it presents some relations Customer, Items, and Borrow
representing business activity in a video store. These relations are just a subset of what
could be a database for the video store and is given as an example.

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The most commonly used query language for relational database is SQL, which
allows retrieval and manipulation of the data stored in the tables, as well as the
calculation of aggregate functions such as average, sum, min, max and count. For
instance, an SQL query to select the videos grouped by category would be:

SELECT count(*) FROM Items WHERE type=video GROUP BY category.

Data mining algorithms using relational databases can be more versatile than data mining
algorithms specifically written for flat files, since they can take advantage of the
structure inherent to relational databases. While data mining can benefit from SQL for
data selection, transformation and consolidation, it goes beyond what SQL could
provide, such as predicting, comparing, detecting deviations, etc.

Data warehouses

A data warehouse is a repository of information collected from multiple sources,

stored under a unified schema, and which usually resides at a single site. Data
warehouses are constructed via a process of data cleansing, data transformation, data
integration, data loading, and periodic data refreshing. The figure shows the basic
architecture of a data warehouse.

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In order to facilitate decision making, the data in a data warehouse are organized around
major subjects, such as customer, item, supplier, and activity. The data are stored
to provide information from a historical perspective and are typically summarized.

A data warehouse is usually modeled by a multidimensional database structure, where

each dimension corresponds to an attribute or a set of attributes in the schema, and each
cell stores the value of some aggregate measure, such as count or sales amount. The
actual physical structure of a data warehouse may be a relational data store or a
multidimensional data cube. It provides a multidimensional view of data and allows the
precomputation and fast accessing of summarized data.

The data cube structure that stores the primitive or lowest level of information is called a

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base cuboid. Its corresponding higher level multidimensional (cube) structures are called
(non-base) cuboids. A base cuboid together with all of its corresponding higher
level cuboids form a data cube. By providing multidimensional data views
and the precomputation of summarized data, data warehouse systems are well suited for
On-Line Analytical Processing, or OLAP. OLAP operations make use of
background knowledge regarding the domain of the data being studied in order to allow
the presentation of data at different levels of abstraction. Such operations accommodate
different user viewpoints. Examples of OLAP operations include drill-down and roll-up,
which allow the user to view the data at differing degrees of summarization, as illustrated
in above figure.

Transactional databases

In general, a transactional database consists of a flat file where each record represents a
transaction. A transaction typically includes a unique transaction identity number (trans
ID), and a list of the items making up the transaction (such as items purchased in a store)
as shown below:

SALES
Trans-ID List of item_ID‘s
T100 I1,I3,I8
…….. ………

Advanced database systems and advanced database applications

• An objected-oriented database is designed based on the object-oriented programming

paradigm where data are a large number of objects organized into class es and
class hierarchies. Each entity in the database is considered as an object. The object
contains a set of variables that describe the object, a set of messages that the
object can use to communicate with other objects or with the rest of the database
system and a set of methods where each method holds the code to implement a message.

• A spatial database contains spatial-related data, which may be represented in the form
of raster or vector data. Raster data consists of n-dimensional bit maps or pixel maps,
and vector data are represented by lines, points, polygons or other kinds of
processed primitives, Some examples of spatial databases include geographical (map)
databases, VLSI chip designs, and medical and satellite images databases.

• Time-Series Databases: Time-series databases contain time related data such stock
market data or logged activities. These databases usually have a continuous flow of
new
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data coming in, which sometimes causes the need for a challenging real time analysis.
Data mining in such databases commonly includes the study of trends and correlations
between evolutions of different variables, as well as the prediction of trends and
movements of the variables in time.

• A text database is a database that contains text documents or other word descriptions in
the form of long sentences or paragraphs, such as product specifications, error or
bug reports, warning messages, summary reports, notes, or other documents.

• A multimedia database stores images, audio, and video data, and is used in
applications such as picture content-based retrieval, voice-mail systems, video-on-demand
systems, the World Wide Web, and speech-based user interfaces.

• The World-Wide Web provides rich, world-wide, on-line information services,

where data objects are linked together to facilitate interactive access. Some
examples of distributed information services associated with the World-Wide Web
include America Online, Yahoo!, AltaVista, and Prodigy.

1.4 Data mining functionalities/Data mining tasks: what kinds of patterns can
be mined?

Data mining functionalities are used to specify the kind of patterns to be found in
data mining tasks. In general, data mining tasks can be classified into two categories:

•
Descri
ptive •
predic
tive

Descriptive mining tasks characterize the general properties of the data in the database.
Predictive mining tasks perform inference on the current data in order to
make predictions.

Describe data mining functionalities and the kinds of patterns they can
discover (or)
Define each of the following data mining functionalities: characterization,
discrimination, association and correlation analysis, classification, prediction,
clustering, and evolution analysis. Give examples of each data mining functionality,
using a real-life database that you are familiar with.

Concept/class description: characterization and discrimination

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Data can be associated with classes or concepts. It describes a given set of data in a
concise and summarative manner, presenting interesting general properties of the
data. These descriptions can be derived via

1. data characterization, by summarizing the data of the class under

study (often called the target class)
2. data discrimination, by comparison of the target class with one or a set
of comparative classes
3. both data characterization and discrimination

Data characterization

It is a summarization of the general characteristics or features of a target class of data.

Example:

A data mining system should be able to produce a description summarizing

the characteristics of a student who has obtained more than 75% in every semester; the
result could be a general profile of the student.

Data Discrimination is a comparison of the general features of target class data objects
with the general features of objects from one or a set of contrasting classes.

Example

The general features of students with high GPA‘s may be compared with the
general features of students with low GPA‘s. The resulting description could be
a general comparative profile of the students such as 75% of the students with high
GPA‘s are fourth-year computing science students while 65% of the students with low
GPA‘s are not.

The output of data characterization can be presented in various forms. Examples

include pie charts, bar charts, curves, multidimensional data cubes, and
multidimensional tables,
including crosstabs. The resulting descriptions can also be presented as generalized
relations, or in rule form called characteristic rules.

Discrimination descriptions expressed in rule form are referred to as discriminant rules.

Mining Frequent Patterns, Association and Correlations

It is the discovery of association rules showing attribute-value conditions that

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occur frequently together in a given set of data. For example, a data mining system
may find association rules like

major(X, ―computing science‖‖) ⇒ owns(X, ―personal

computer‖) [support = 12%, confidence = 98%]

where X is a variable representing a student. The rule indicates that of the students under
study, 12% (support) major in computing science and own a personal computer. There is a
98% probability (confidence, or certainty) that a student in this group owns a personal
computer.

Example:

A grocery store retailer to decide whether to but bread on sale. To help determine the
impact of this decision, the retailer generates association rules that show what other
products are frequently purchased with bread. He finds 60% of the times that bread is sold
so are pretzels and that 70% of the time jelly is also sold. Based on these facts, he tries
to capitalize on the association between bread, pretzels, and jelly by placing some
pretzels and jelly at the end of the aisle where the bread is placed. In addition, he
decides not to place either of these items on sale at the same time.

Classification and prediction

Classification:

Classification:

 It predicts categorical class labels

 It classifies data (constructs a model) based on the training set and the values (class
labels) in a classifying attribute and uses it in classifying new data
 Typical Applications
 credit approval o
target marketing
 medical diagnosis
 treatment effectiveness analysis

Classification can be defined as the process of finding a model (or function) that
describes and distinguishes data classes or concepts, for the purpose of being able to use
the model to predict the class of objects whose class label is unknown. The derived
model is based on the analysis of a set of training data (i.e., data objects whose class label
is known).

Example:

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An airport security screening station is used to deter mine if passengers are potential
terrorist or criminals. To do this, the face of each passenger is scanned and its
basic pattern(distance between eyes, size, and shape of mouth, head etc) is
identified. This pattern is compared to entries in a database to see if it matches any
patterns that are associated with known offenders

A classification model can be represented in various forms, such as

1) IF-THEN rules,

student ( class , "undergraduate") AND concentration ( level, "high") ==> class A

student (class ,"undergraduate") AND concentrtion (level,"low") ==> class B

student (class , "post graduate") ==> class C

2) Decision tree

3) Neural Network

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Prediction:

Find some missing or unavailable data values rather than class labels re ferred to
as prediction. Although prediction may refer to both data value prediction and class
label prediction, it is usually confined to data value prediction and thus is distinct
from classification. Prediction also encompasses the identification of distribution trends
based on the available data.

Example:

Predicting flooding is difficult problem. One approach is uses monitors placed at

various points in the river. These monitors collect data relevant to flood prediction:
water level, rain amount, time, humidity etc. These water levels at a potential flooding
point in the river can be predicted based on the data collected by the sensors upriver
from this point. The prediction must be made with respect to the time the data were
collected.

Classification vs. Prediction

Classification differs from prediction in that the former is to construct a set of models
(or functions) that describe and distinguish data class or concepts, whereas the latter
is to predict some missing or unavailable, and often numerical, data values. Their
similarity is that they are both tools for prediction: Classification is used for predicting the
class label of data objects and prediction is typically used for predicting missing numerical
data values.

Clustering analysis

Clustering analyzes data objects without consulting a known class label.

The objects are clustered or grouped based on the principle of maximizing the intraclass
similarity and minimizing the interclass similarity.
Each cluster that is formed can be viewed as a class of objects.

Clustering can also facilitate taxonomy formation, that is, the organization of
observations into a hierarchy of classes that group similar events together as shown
below:

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Example:

A certain national department store chain creates special catalogs targeted to various
demographic groups based on attributes such as income, location a nd
physical characteristics of potential customers (age, height, weight, etc). To determine
the target mailings of the various catalogs and to assist in the creation of new, more
specific catalogs, the company performs a clustering of potential customers based
on the determined attribute values. The results of the clustering exercise are the used
by management to create special catalogs and distribute them to the correct target
population based on the cluster for that catalog.

Classification vs. Clustering

 In general, in classification you have a set of predefined classes and want to

know which class a new object belongs to.
 Clustering tries to group a set of objects and find whether there is some
relationship between the objects.
 In the context of machine learning, classification is supervised learning
and clustering is unsupervised learning.

Outlier analysis: A database may contain data objects that do not comply with general
model of data. These data objects are outliers. In other words, the data objects which do
not fall within the cluster will be called as outlier data objects. Noisy data or exceptional
data are also called as outlier data. The analysis of outlier data is referred to as outlier
mining.

Example
Outlier analysis may uncover fraudulent usage of credit cards by detecting purchases
of extremely large amounts for a given account number in comparison to regular
charges incurred by the same account. Outlier values may also be detected with
respect to the location and type of purchase, or the purchase frequency.

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 Data evolution analysis describes and models regularities or trends for objects whose
behavior changes over time.

Example:
The data of result the last several years of a college would give an idea if quality
of graduated produced by it

Correlation analysis

Correlation analysis is a technique use to measure the association between two variables.
A correlation coefficient (r) is a statistic used for measuring the strength of a
supposed linear association between two variables. Correlations range from -1.0 to +1.0 in
value.

A correlation coefficient of 1.0 indicates a perfect positive relationship in which high

values of one variable are related perfectly to high values in the other variable, and
conversely, low values on one variable are perfectly related to low values on the other
variable.

A correlation coefficient of 0.0 indicates no relationship between the two variables. That
is, one cannot use the scores on one variable to tell anything about the scores on the
second variable.

A correlation coefficient of -1.0 indicates a perfect negative relationship in which

high values of one variable are related perfectly to low values in the other
variables, and conversely, low values in one variable are perfectly related to high
values on the other variable.

What is the difference between discrimination and classification? Between

characterization and clustering? Between classification and prediction? For each of
these pairs of tasks, how are they similar?
Answer:
• Discrimination differs from classification in that the former refers to a comparison of
the general features of target class data objects with the general features of objects from
one or a set of contrasting classes, while the latter is the process of finding a set of
models (or functions) that describe and distinguish data classes or concepts for the
purpose of being able to use the model to predict the class of objects whose class
label is unknown. Discrimination and classification are similar in that they both deal with
the analysis of class data objects.

• Characterization differs from clustering in that the former refers to a summarization of

the general characteristics or features of a target class of data while the latter deals with
the analysis of data objects without consulting a known class label. This pair of tasks
is similar in that they both deal with grouping together objects or data that are related
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or have high similarity in comparison to one another.
• Classification differs from prediction in that the former is the process of finding a set
of models (or functions) that describe and distinguish data class or concepts while the
latter predicts missing or unavailable, and often numerical, data values. This pair of
tasks is similar in that they both are tools for
Prediction: Classification is used for predicting the class label of data objects and
prediction is typically used for predicting missing numerical data values.

1.5 Are all of the patterns interesting? / What makes a pattern interesting?

A pattern is interesting if,

(1) It is easily understood by humans,

(2) Valid on new or test data with some degree of certainty,

(3) Potentially useful, and

(4) Novel.

A pattern is also interesting if it validates a hypothesis that the user sought to confirm.
An interesting pattern represents knowledge.

Classification of data mining systems

There are many data mining systems available or being developed. Some are
specialized systems dedicated to a given data source or are confined to limited
data mining functionalities, other are more versatile and comprehensive. Data mining
systems can be categorized according to various criteria among other classification are the
following:

· Classification according to the type of data source mined: this

classification categorizes data mining systems according to the type of data handled such
as spatial data, multimedia data, time-series data, text data, World Wide Web, etc.

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· Classification according to the data model drawn on: this classification
categorizes data mining systems based on the data model involved such as relational
database, object-oriented database, data warehouse, transactional, etc.

· Classification according to the king of knowledge discovered: this

classification categorizes data mining systems based on the kind of knowledge discovered
or data mining functionalities, such as
characterization, discrimination, association,
classification, clustering, etc. Some systems tend to be
comprehensive systems offering several data mining functionalities together.

· Classification according to mining techniques used: Data mining systems employ

and provide different techniques. This classification categorizes data mining systems
according to the data analysis approach used such as machine learning, neural
networks, genetic algorithms, statistics, visualization, database oriented or data warehouse-
oriented, etc. The classification can also take into account the degree of user interaction
involved in the data mining process such as query-driven systems, interactive
exploratory systems, or autonomous systems. A comprehensive system would provide a
wide variety of data mining techniques to fit different situations and options, and offer
different degrees of user interaction.

Five primitives for specifying a data mining task

• Task-relevant data: This primitive specifies the data upon which mining is to
be performed. It involves specifying the database and tables or data warehouse containing
the relevant data, conditions for selecting the relevant data, the relevant attributes
or dimensions for exploration, and instructions regarding the ordering or grouping of the
data retrieved.

• Knowledge type to be mined: This primitive specifies the specific data mining
function to be performed, such as characterization, discrimination, association,
classification, clustering, or evolution analysis. As well, the user can be more specific and
provide pattern templates that all discovered patterns must match. These templates or
meta patterns (also called meta rules or meta queries), can be used to guide the discovery
process.

• Background knowledge: This primitive allows users to specify knowledge they

have about the domain to be mined. Such knowledge can be used to guide the
knowledge discovery process and evaluate the patterns that are found. Of the
several kinds of background knowledge, this chapter focuses on concept hierarchies.

• Pattern interestingness measure: This primitive allows users to specify functions that
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are used to separate uninteresting patterns from knowledge and may be used to guide the
mining process, as well as to evaluate the discovered patterns. This allows the user
to confine the number of uninteresting patterns returned by the process, as a data
mining process may generate a large number of patterns. Interestingness measures
can be specified for such pattern characteristics as simplicity, certainty, utility and
novelty.

• Visualization of discovered patterns: This primitive refers to the form in

which discovered patterns are to be displayed. In order for data mining to be
effective in conveying knowledge to users, data mining systems should be able
to display the discovered patterns in multiple forms such as rules, tables, cross tabs (cross-
tabulations), pie or bar charts, decision trees, cubes or other visual representations.

Integration of a Data Mining System with a Database or Data Warehouse System

The differences between the following architectures for the integration of a data mining
system with a database or data warehouse system are as follows.

• No coupling:

The data mining system uses sources such as flat files to obtain the initial data set to
be mined since no database system or data warehouse system functions are implemented
as part of the process. Thus, this architecture represents a poor design choice.

• Loose coupling:

The data mining system is not integrated with the database or data warehouse system
beyond their use as the source of the initial data set to be mined, and possible use
in storage of the results. Thus, this architecture can take advantage of the flexibility,
efficiency and features such as indexing that the database and data warehousing
systems may provide. However, it is difficult for loose coupling to achieve high
scalability and good performance with large data sets as many such systems are memory-
based.

• Semi tight coupling:

Some of the data mining primitives such as aggregation, sorting or pre computation
of statistical functions are efficiently implemented in the database or data warehouse
system, for use by the data mining system during mining-query processing. Also, some
frequently used inter mediate mining results can be pre computed and stored in the
database or data warehouse system, thereby enhancing the performance of the data mining
system.
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• Tight coupling:

The database or data warehouse system is fully integrated as part of the data mining
system and thereby provides optimized data mining query processing. Thus, the data
mining sub system is treated as one functional component of an information system. This
is a highly desirable architecture as it facilitates efficient implementations of data
mining functions, high system performance, and an
integrated information processing environment

From the descriptions of the architectures provided above, it can be seen that tight
coupling is the best alternative without respect to technical or implementation issues.
However, as much of the technical infrastructure needed in a tightly coupled system is
still evolving, implementation of such a system is non-trivial. Therefore, the most
popular architecture is currently semi tight coupling as it provides a compromise
between loose and tight coupling.

Major issues in data mining

Major issues in data mining is regarding mining methodology, user

interaction, performance, and diverse data types

1 Mining methodology and user-interaction issues:

_ Mining different kinds of knowledge in databases: Since different users can be

interested in different kinds of knowledge, data mining should cover a wide spectrum of
data analysis and knowledge discovery tasks, including data
characterization, discrimination, association, classification, clustering, trend and
deviation analysis, and similarity analysis. These tasks may use the same database in
different ways and require the development of numerous data mining techniques.

_ Interactive mining of knowledge at multiple levels of abstraction: Since it is

difficult to know exactly what can be discovered within a database, the data mining
process should be interactive.

_ Incorporation of background knowledge: Background knowledge, or

information regarding the domain under study, may be used to guide the discovery
patterns. Domain knowledge related to databases, such as integrity constraints and
deduction rules, can help focus and speed up a data mining process, or judge the
interestingness of discovered patterns.

_ Data mining query languages and ad-hoc data mining: Knowledge in Relational
query languages (such as SQL) required since it allow users to pose ad-hoc queries
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for data retrieval.

_ Presentation and visualization of data mining results: Discovered knowledge

should be expressed in high-level languages, visual representations, so that the knowledge
can be easily understood and directly usable by humans

_ Handling outlier or incomplete data: The data stored in a database may reflect
outliers: noise, exceptional cases, or incomplete data objects. These objects may confuse
the analysis process, causing over fitting of the data to the knowledge model
constructed. As a result, the accuracy of the discovered patterns can be poor. Data
cleaning methods and data analysis methods which can handle outliers are required.

_ Pattern evaluation: refers to interestingness of pattern: A data mining system

can uncover thousands of patterns. Many of the patterns discovered may be
uninteresting to the given user, representing common knowledge or lacking novelty.
Several challenges remain regarding the development of techniques to assess the
interestingness of discovered patterns,

2. Performance issues. These include efficiency, scalability, and parallelization of

data mining algorithms.

_ Efficiency and scalability of data mining algorithms: To effectively extract

information from a huge amount of data in databases, data mining algorithms must be
efficient and scalable.

_ Parallel, distributed, and incremental updating algorithms: Such algorithms

divide the data into partitions, which are processed in parallel. The results from the
partitions are then merged.

3. Issues relating to the diversity of database types

_ Handling of relational and complex types of data: Since relational databases and
data warehouses are widely used, the development of efficient and effective data
mining systems for such data is important.

_ Mining information from heterogeneous databases and global information systems:

Local and wide-area computer networks (such as the Internet) connect many sources of
data, forming huge, distributed, and heterogeneous databases. The discovery of
knowledge from different sources of structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data
with diverse data semantics poses great challenges to data mining.

Data preprocessing

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Data preprocessing describes any type of processing performed on raw data to prepare it
for another processing procedure. Commonly used as a preliminary data mining
practice,
data preprocessing transforms the data into a format that will be more easily and
effectively processed for the purpose of the user.

Data preprocessing describes any type of processing performed on raw data to prepare it
for another processing procedure. Commonly used as a preliminary data mining
practice, data preprocessing transforms the data into a format that will be more
easily and effectively processed for the purpose of the user

Why Data Preprocessing?

Data in the real world is dirty. It can be in incomplete, noisy and inconsistent from.
These data needs to be preprocessed in order to help improve the quality of the data, and
quality of the mining results.

If no quality data , then no quality mining results. The quality decision is always
based on the quality data.
If there is much irrelevant and redundant information present or noisy and
unreliable data, then knowledge discovery during the training phase is more difficult

Incomplete data: lacking attribute values, lacking certain attributes of interest, or containing
only aggregate data. e.g., occupation=― ‖.

Noisy data: containing errors or outliers data. e.g., Salary=―-10‖

Inconsistent data: containing discrepancies in codes or names. e.g.,

Age=―42‖ Birthday=―03/07/1997‖

Incomplete data may come from

―Not applicable‖ data value when collected
Different considerations between the time when the data was collected and when it is
analyzed.
Human/hardware/software problems
Noisy data (incorrect values) may come from
Faulty data collection by instruments
Human or computer error at data entry
Errors in data transmission
Inconsistent data may come from
Different data sources
Functional dependency violation (e.g., modify some linked data)
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  Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing

o Data cleaning

o Fill in missing values, smooth noisy data, identify or remove outliers,

and resolve inconsistencies

o Data integration

o Integration of multiple databases, data cubes, or files

o Data transformation

o Normalization and aggregation

o Data reduction

 Obtains reduced representation in volume but produces the same or similar

analytical results

Data discretization

Part of data reduction but with particular importance, especially for numerical data

 Forms of Data Preprocessing

Descriptive Data

Summarization Categorize the

measures

 A measure is distributive, if we can partition the dataset into smaller subsets,

compute the measure on the individual subsets, and then combine the partial
results in order to arrive at the measure‘s value on the entire (original) dataset
 A measure is algebraic if it can be computed by applying an algebraic function to
one or more distributive measures
 A measure is holistic if it must be computed on the entire dataset as a whole

2.2.1 Measure the Central Tendency

A measure of central tendency is a single value that attempts to describe a set of data
47
by identifying the central position within that set of data. As such, measures of

48
central tendency are sometimes called measures of central location.

In other words, in many real-life situations, it is helpful to describe data by a single

number that is most representative of the entire collection of numbers. Such a number is
called a measure of central tendency. The most commonly used measures are as
follows. Mean, Median, and Mode

Mean: mean, or average, of numbers is the sum of the numbers divided by n. That is:

Example 1

The marks of seven students in a mathematics test with a maximum possible mark of 20
are given below:
15 13 18 16 14 17 12

Find the mean of this set of data values.

Solution:

So, the mean mark is 15.

49
Midrange

The midrange of a data set is the average of the minimum and maximum values.

Median: median of numbers is the middle number when the numbers are written in order.
If is even, the median is the average of the two middle numbers.

Example 2

The marks of nine students in a geography test that had a maximum possible mark of 50
are given below:
47 35 37 32 38 39 36 34 35

Find the median of this set of data values.

Solution:

Arrange the data values in order from the lowest value to the highest value:

32 34 35 35 36 37 38 39 47

The fifth data value, 36, is the middle value in this arrangement.

Note:

In general:

If the number of values in the data set is even, then the median is the average of the
two middle values.

50
Example 3

Find the median of the following data

set: 12 18 16 21 10 13
17 19

Solution:

Arrange the data values in order from the lowest value to the highest
value: 10 12 13 16 17 18 19 21

The number of values in the data set is 8, which is even. So, the median is the average
of the two middle values.

Trimmed mean

A trimming mean eliminates the extreme observations by removing observations

from each end of the ordered sample. It is calculated by discarding a certain percentage
of the lowest and the highest scores and then computing the mean of the remaining scores.

Mode of numbers is the number that occurs most frequently. If two numbers tie for most
frequent occurrence, the collection has two modes and is called bimodal.

The mode has applications in printing . For example, it is important to print more of
the most popular books; because printing different books in equal numbers would
cause a shortage of some books and an oversupply of others.

Likewise, the mode has applications in manufacturing. For example, it is important to

manufacture more of the most popular shoes; because manufacturing different shoes in
equal numbers would cause a shortage of some shoes and an oversupply of others.
Example 4
Find the mode of the following data set:

48 44 48 45 42 49 48
51
Solution:
The mode is 48 since it occurs most often.

 It is possible for a set of data values to have more than one mode.
 If there are two data values that occur most frequently, we say that the set of data
values is bimodal.
 If there is three data values that occur most frequently, we say that the set of data
values is trimodal
 If two or more data values that occur most frequently, we say that the set
of data values is multimodal
 If there is no data value or data values that occur most frequently, we say that
the set of data values has no mode.

The mean, median and mode of a data set are collectively known as measures of
central tendency as these three measures focus on where the data is centered or
clustered. To analyze data using the mean, median and mode, we need to use the most
appropriate measure of central tendency. The following points should be remembered:

 The mean is useful for predicting future results when there are no extreme
values in the data set. However, the impact of extreme values on the mean may
be important and should be considered. E.g. the impact of a stock market crash
on average investment returns.
 The median may be more useful than the mean when there are extreme
values in the data set as it is not affected by the extreme values.
 The mode is useful when the most common item, characteristic or value of a
data set is required.
Measures of Dispersion

Measures of dispersion measure how spread out a set of data is. The two most
commonly used measures of dispersion are the variance and the standard deviation.
Rather than showing how data are similar, they show how data differs from its
variation, spread, or dispersion.
Other measures of dispersion that may be encountered include the Quartiles, Inter quartile
range (IQR), Five number summary, range and box plots
Variance and Standard Deviation

Very different sets of numbers can have the same mean. You will now study two
measures of dispersion, which give you an idea of how much the numbers in a set differ
from the mean of the set. These two measures are called the variance of the set and the

52
standard deviation of the set

Percentile

Percentiles are values that divide a sample of data into one hundred groups containing (as
far as possible) equal numbers of observations.

The pth percentile of a distribution is the value such that p percent of the observations fall
at or below it.

The most commonly used percentiles other than the median are the 25th percentile and
the 75th percentile.

The 25th percentile demarcates the first quartile, the median or 50th percentile
demarcates the second quartile, the 75th percentile demarcates the third quartile, and the
100th percentile demarcates the fourth quartile.

Quartiles

Quartiles are numbers that divide an ordered data set into four portions, each containing
approximately one-fourth of the data. Twenty-five percent of the data values come
before the first quartile (Q1). The median is the second quartile (Q2); 50% of the data
53
values come before the median. Seventy-five percent of the data values come before the
third quartile (Q3).

Q1=25th percentile=(n*25/100), where n is total number of data in the given data set

Q2=median=50th percentile=(n*50/100)
th
Q3=75 percentile=(n*75/100)

Inter quartile range (IQR)

The inter quartile range is the length of the interval between the lower quartile (Q1) and
the upper quartile (Q3). This interval indicates the central, or middle, 50% of a data set.

IQR=Q3-Q1

Range

The range of a set of data is the difference between its largest (maximum) and
smallest (minimum) values. In the statistical world, the range is reported as a single
number, the difference between maximum and minimum. Sometimes, the range is often
reported as ―from (the minimum) to (the maximum),‖ i.e., two numbers.

Example1:

Given data set: 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8

The range of data set is 3–8. The range gives only minimal information about the spread
of the data, by defining the two extremes. It says nothing about how the data are
distributed between those two endpoints.

Example2:

In this example we demonstrate how to find the minimum value, maximum value,
and range of the following data: 29, 31, 24, 29, 30, 25

1. Arrange the data from smallest to largest.

24, 25, 29, 29, 30, 31

2. Identify the minimum and maximum

values: Minimum = 24, Maximum = 31

3. Calculate the range:

54
Range = Maximum-Minimum = 31–24 = 7.

Thus the range is 7.

Five-Number Summary

The Five-Number Summary of a data set is a five-item list comprising the minimum
value, first quartile, median, third quartile, and maximum value of the set.

{MIN, Q1, MEDIAN (Q2), Q3, MAX}

Box plots

A box plot is a graph used to represent the range, median, quartiles and inter quartile range
of a set of data values.

Constructing a Box plot: To construct a box plot:

(i) Draw a box to represent the middle 50% of the observations of the data
set. (ii) Show the median by drawing a vertical line within the box.
(iii) Draw the lines (called whiskers) from the lower and upper ends of the box to the
minimum and maximum values of the data set respectively, as shown in the following
diagram.

 X is the set of data values.

 Min X is the minimum value in the
data Max X is the maximum value in
the data set.

Example: Draw a boxplot for the following data set of

scores: 76 79 76 74 75 71 85 82 82 79

81

Step 1: Arrange the score values in ascending order of magnitude:

55
71 74 75 76 76 79 79 81 82 82 85

56
There are 11 values in the data set.

Step 2: Q1=25th percentile value in the given data set

Q1=11*(25/100) th value

=2.75 =>3rd value

=75

Step 3: Q2=median=50th percentile value

=11 * (50/100) th value

=5.5th value => 6th value

=79

Step 4: Q3=75th percentile value

=11*(75/100)th value

=8.25th value=>9th value

= 82

Step 5: Min X= 71

Step 6: Max X=85

Step 7: Range= 85-71 = 14

Step 5: IQR=height of the box=Q3-Q1=9-3=6th value=79

57
Since the medians represent the middle points, they split the data into four equal parts. In
other words:

 one quarter of the data numbers are less than 75

 one quarter of the data numbers are between 75 and
79  one quarter of the data numbers are between
79 and 82  one quarter of the data numbers are
greater than 82

Outliers

Outlier data is a data that falls outside the range. Outliers will be any points below Q 1
– 1.5×IQR or above Q3 + 1.5×IQR.

Example:

Find the outliers, if any, for the following data set:

10.2, 14.1, 14.4, 14.4, 14.4, 14.5, 14.5, 14.6, 14.7, 14.7, 14.7, 14.9, 15.1, 15.9, 16.4

To find out if there are any outliers, I first have to find the IQR. There are fifteen data
points, so the median will be at position (15/2) = 7.5=8th value=14.6. That is, Q2 =
14.6.

Q1 is the fourth value in the list and Q3 is the twelfth: Q1 = 14.4 and Q3 = 14.9.

Then IQR = 14.9 – 14.4 = 0.5.

Outliers will be any points below:

Q1 – 1.5×IQR = 14.4 – 0.75 = 13.65 or above Q3 + 1.5×IQR = 14.9 + 0.75 = 15.65.

Then the outliers are at 10.2, 15.9, and 16.4.

The values for Q1 – 1.5×IQR and Q3 + 1.5×IQR are the "fences" that mark off
the "reasonable" values from the outlier values. Outliers lie outside the
fences.

Graphic Displays of Basic Descriptive Data Summaries

58
1 Histogram

A histogram is a way of summarizing data that are measured on an interval scale

(either discrete or continuous). It is often used in exploratory data analysis to illustrate
the major features of the distribution of the data in a convenient form. It divides up
the range of possible values in a data set into classes or groups. For each group,
a rectangle is constructed with a base length equal to the range of values in that
specific group, and an area proportional to the number of observations falling into that
group. This means that the rectangles might be drawn of non-uniform height.

The histogram is only appropriate for variables whose values are numerical and measured
on an interval scale. It is generally used when dealing with large data sets
(>100 observations)

A histogram can also help detect any unusual observations (outliers), or any gaps in the
data set.

2 Scatter Plot

A scatter plot is a useful summary of a set of bivariate data (two variables), usually
drawn before working out a linear correlation coefficient or fitting a regression line. It
gives a good visual picture of the relationship between the two variables, and aids the
interpretation of the correlation coefficient or regression model.

Each unit contributes one point to the scatter plot, on which points are plotted but not
joined. The resulting pattern indicates the type and strength of the relationship between
the two variables.

59
Positively and Negatively Correlated Data

A scatter plot will also show up a non-linear relationship between the two variables and
whether or not there exist any outliers in the data.

3 Loess curve

It is another important exploratory graphic aid that adds a smooth curve to a scatter plot in
order to provide better perception of the pattern of dependence. The word loess is short for
―local regression.‖

60
4 Box plot

The picture produced consists of the most extreme values in the data set (maximum and
minimum values), the lower and upper quartiles, and the median.

5 Quintile plot

 Displays all of the data (allowing the user to assess both the overall behavior
and unusual occurrences)
 Plots quintile information
 For a data xi data sorted in increasing order, fi indicates that
approximately 100 fi% of the data are below or equal to the value xi

61
The f quintile of the data is found. That data value is denoted q(f). Each data point can
be assigned an f-value. Let a time series x of length n be sorted from smallest to
largest values, such that the sorted values have rank. The f-value for each observation is
computed as . 1,2,..., n . The f-value for

each observation is computed as,

6 Quantile-Quantile plots (Q-Q plot)

Quantile-quantile plots allow us to compare the quintiles of two sets of numbers.

This kind of comparison is much more detailed than a simple comparison of means
or medians.

A normal distribution is often a reasonable model for the data. Without inspecting the
data, however, it is risky to assume a normal distribution. There are a number of graphs
that can be used to check the deviations of the data from the normal distribution. The
most useful tool for assessing normality is a quintile or QQ plot. This is a scatter plot
with the quantiles of the scores on the horizontal axis and the expected normal
scores on the vertical axis.

In other words, it is a graph that shows the quintiles of one univariate distribution against
the corresponding quintiles of another. It is a powerful visualization tool in that it allows
the user to view whether there is a shift in going from one distribution to another.

The steps in constructing a QQ plot are as follows:

First, we sort the data from smallest to largest. A plot of these scores against the
expected normal scores should reveal a straight line.

62
The expected normal scores are calculated by taking the z-scores of (I - ½)/n where I is the
rank in increasing order.

Curvature of the points indicates departures of normality. This plot is also useful
for detecting outliers. The outliers appear as points that are far away from the overall
pattern op points

How is a quantile-quantile plot different from a quintile plot?

A quintile plot is a graphical method used to show the approximate percentage of values
below or equal to the indepequintile information for all the data, where the values
measured for the independent variable are plotted against their corresponding quintile.

A quantile-quantile plot however, graphs the quantiles of one univariate distribution

against the corresponding quantiles of another univariate distribution. Both axes
display the range of values measured for their corresponding distribution, and points
are plotted that correspond to the quantile values of the two distributions. A line (y
= x) can be added to the graph along with points representing where the first,
second and third quantiles lie, in order to increase the graph‘s informational value.
Points that lie above such a line indicate a correspondingly higher value for the
distribution plotted on the y-axis, than for the distribution plotted on the x-axis at
the same quantile. The opposite effect is true for points lying below this line.

Data Cleaning

Data cleaning routines attempt to fill in missing values, smooth out noise while
identifying outliers, and correct inconsistencies in the data.

63
Various methods for handling this problem:

Missing Values
The various methods for handling the problem of missing values in data tuples include:

(a) Ignoring the tuple: This is usually done when the class label is missing (assuming
the mining task involves classification or description). This method is not very effective
unless the tuple contains several
attributes with missing values. It is especially poor when the percentage of missing values
per attribute
varies considerably.
(b) Manually filling in the missing value: In general, this approach is time-
consuming and may not be a reasonable task for large data sets with many missing
values, especially when the value to be filled in is not easily determined.
(c) Using a global constant to fill in the missing value: Replace all missing attribute
values by the same constant, such as a label like ―Unknown,‖ or −∞. If missing values
are replaced by, say, ―Unknown,‖ then the mining program may mistakenly
think that they form an interesting concept, since they all have a value in common — that
of ―Unknown.‖ Hence, although this method is simple, it is not recommended.
(d) Using the attribute mean for quantitative (numeric) values or attribute mode for
categorical (nominal) values, for all samples belonging to the same class as the given
tuple: For example, if classifying customers according to credit risk, replace the
missing value with the average income value for customers in the same credit risk
category as that of the given tuple.
(e) Using the most probable value to fill in the missing value: This may be determined
with regression, inference-based tools using Bayesian formalism, or decision
tree induction. For example, using the other customer attributes in your data set, you
may construct a decision tree to predict the missing values for income.

Noisy data:

Noise is a random error or variance in a measured variable. Data smoothing tech is used for
removing such noisy data.

Several Data smoothing techniques:

1 Binning methods: Binning methods smooth a sorted data value by consulting

the neighborhood", or values around it. The sorted values are distributed into a
number of 'buckets', or bins. Because binning methods consult the neighborhood of
values, they perform local smoothing.

64
In this technique,

1. The data for first sorted

2. Then the sorted list partitioned into equi-depth of bins.
3. Then one can smooth by bin means, smooth by bin median, smooth by
bin boundaries, etc.
a. Smoothing by bin means: Each value in the bin is replaced by the
mean value of the bin.
b. Smoothing by bin medians: Each value in the bin is replaced by the
bin median.
c. Smoothing by boundaries: The min and max values of a bin are identified
as the bin boundaries. Each bin value is replaced by the closest boundary
value.
 Example: Binning Methods for Data Smoothing
o Sorted data for price (in dollars): 4, 8, 9, 15, 21, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 34
o Partition into (equi-depth) bins(equi depth of 3 since each bin contains three
values):
- Bin 1: 4, 8, 9, 15

- Bin 2: 21, 21, 24, 25

- Bin 3: 26, 28, 29, 34

o Smoothing by bin
means: - Bin 1:
9, 9, 9, 9

- Bin 2: 23, 23, 23, 23

- Bin 3: 29, 29, 29, 29

o Smoothing by bin
boundaries: - Bin 1:
4, 4, 4, 15

- Bin 2: 21, 21, 25, 25

- Bin 3: 26, 26, 26, 34

In smoothing by bin means, each value in a bin is replaced by the mean value of the bin.
For example, the mean of the values 4, 8, and 15 in Bin 1 is 9. Therefore, each original
value in this bin is replaced by the value 9. Similarly, smoothing by bin medians can be
employed, in which each bin value is replaced by the bin median. In smoothing by bin
boundaries, the minimum and maximum values in a given bin are identified as the bin

65
boundaries. Each bin value is then replaced by the closest boundary value.
Suppose that the data for analysis include the attribute age. The age values for the data
tuples are (in
increasing order): 13, 15, 16, 16, 19, 20, 20, 21, 22, 22, 25, 25, 25, 25, 30, 33, 33, 35, 35,
35, 35, 36, 40, 45, 46, 52, 70.
(a) Use smoothing by bin means to smooth the above data, using a bin depth of 3.
Illustrate your steps.
Comment on the effect of this technique for the given data.

The following steps are required to smooth the above data using smoothing by bin means
with a bin
depth of 3.

• Step 1: Sort the data. (This step is not required here as the data are already sorted.)

• Step 2: Partition the data into equi-depth bins of depth

3. Bin 1: 13, 15, 16 Bin 2: 16, 19, 20 Bin 3: 20, 21, 22
Bin 4: 22, 25, 25 Bin 5: 25, 25, 30 Bin 6: 33,
33, 35 Bin 7: 35, 35, 35 Bin 8: 36, 40, 45 Bin
9: 46, 52, 70

• Step 3: Calculate the arithmetic mean of each bin.

• Step 4: Replace each of the values in each bin by the arithmetic mean calculated for
the bin.
Bin 1: 14, 14, 14 Bin 2: 18, 18, 18 Bin 3: 21,
21, 21 Bin 4: 24, 24, 24 Bin 5: 26, 26, 26 Bin
6: 33, 33, 33 Bin 7: 35, 35, 35 Bin 8: 40, 40,
40 Bin 9: 56, 56, 56

2 Clustering: Outliers in the data may be detected by clustering, where similar values
are organized into groups, or ‗clusters‘. Values that fall outside of the set of clusters
may be considered outliers.

66
3 Regression : smooth by fitting the data into regression functions.

 Linear regression involves finding the best of line to fit two variables, so
that one variable can be used to predict the other.

 Multiple linear regression is an extension of linear regression, where

more than two variables are involved and the data are fit to a
multidimensional surface.

Using regression to find a mathematical equation to fit the data helps smooth out the noise.

Field overloading: is a kind of source of errors that typically occurs when

developers compress new attribute definitions into unused portions of already defined
attributes.

Unique rule is a rule says that each value of the given attribute must be different from
all other values of that attribute

Consecutive rule is a rule says that there can be no missing values between the lowest and
highest values of the attribute and that all values must also be unique.

Null rule specifies the use of blanks, question marks, special characters or other strings
that may indicate the null condition and how such values should be handled.

Data Integration and Transformation

Data Integration
It combines data from multiple sources into a coherent store. There are number of issues to
consider during data integration.

Issues:

 Schema integration: refers integration of metadata from different sources.

 Entity identification problem: Identifying entity in one data source similar
to entity in another table. For example, customer_id in one db and

67
 customer_no in another db refer to the same entity
 Detecting and resolving data value conflicts: Attribute values from
different sources can be different due to different representations, different scales.
E.g. metric vs. British units
 Redundancy: is another issue while performing data integration. Redundancy
can occur due to the following reasons:

 Object identification: The same attribute may have different names

in different db
 Derived Data: one attribute may be derived from another attribute.

Handling redundant data in data integration

1. Correlation analysis

For numeric data

Some redundancy can be identified by correlation analysis. The correlation between two
variables A and B can be measured by

 The result of the equation is > 0, then A and B are positively correlated, which
means the value of A increases as the values of B increases. The higher value
may indicate redundancy that may be removed.
 The result of the equation is = 0, then A and B are independent and there is
no correlation between them.
 If the resulting value is < 0, then A and B are negatively correlated where the
values of one attribute increase as the value of one attribute decrease which means
each attribute may discourages each other.
-also called Pearson‘s product moment coefficient

For categorical data

68
Example:

2.4.2 Data Transformation

Data transformation can involve the following:

 Smoothing: which works to remove noise from the data

 Aggregation: where summary or aggregation operations are applied to the data.
For example, the daily sales data may be aggregated so as to compute weekly
and annual total scores.
 Generalization of the data: where low-level or ―primitive‖ (raw) data
are replaced by higher-level concepts through the use of concept hierarchies. For
example, categorical attributes, like street, can be generalized to higher-level
concepts, like city or country.
 Normalization: where the attribute data are scaled so as to fall within a
small specified range, such as −1.0 to 1.0, or 0.0 to 1.0.
     Attribute construction (feature construction): this is where
new attributes are constructed and added from the given set of attributes to help the
mining process.

Normalization
In which data are scaled to fall within a small, specified range, useful for classification
algorithms involving neural networks, distance measurements such as nearest neighbor
classification and clustering. There are 3 methods for data normalization. They are:

69
1) min-max normalization
2) z-score normalization
3) normalization by decimal scaling

Min-max normalization: performs linear transformation on the original data values. It can
be defined as,
v (new _ max  new _ min )  new _ min
v' 
min A
A A A

maxA  minA

v is the value to be normalized

minA,maxA are minimum and maximum values of an
attribute A new_ maxA, new_ minA are the normalization
range.

Z-score normalization / zero-mean normalization: In which values of an attribute A are

normalized based on the mean and standard deviation of A. It can be defined as,
vm
v'  eanA
stand
_ devA
This method is useful when min and max value of attribute A are unknown or
when outliers that are dominate min-max normalization.

Normalization by decimal scaling: normalizes by moving the decimal point of values of

attribute A. The number of decimal points moved depends on the maximum absolute value
of A. A value v of A is normalized to v‘ by computing,

Data Reduction techniques

These techniques can be applied to obtain a reduced representation of the data set that is
much smaller in volume, yet closely maintains the integrity of the original data. Data

reduction includes,

70
 1. Data cube aggregation, where aggregation operations are applied to the data in the
construction of a data cube.
2. Attribute subset selection, where irrelevant, weakly relevant or redundant
attributes or dimensions may be detected and removed.
3. Dimensionality reduction, where encoding mechanisms are used to reduce the data
set size. Examples: Wavelet Transforms Principal Components Analysis
4. Numerosity reduction, where the data are replaced or estimated by alternative,
smaller data representations such as parametric models (which need store only the
model parameters instead of the actual data) or nonparametric methods such as
clustering, sampling, and the use of histograms.
5. Discretization and concept hierarchy generation, where raw data values for
attributes are replaced by ranges or higher conceptual levels. Data Discretization is a

form of numerosity reduction that is very useful for the automatic generation
of concept hierarchies.

Data cube aggregation: Reduce the data to the concept level needed in the
analysis. Queries regarding aggregated information should be answered using data
cube when possible. Data cubes store multidimensional aggregated information. The
following figure shows a data cube for multidimensional analysis of sales data with
respect to annual sales per item type for each branch.

Each cells holds an aggregate data value, corresponding to the data point
in multidimensional space.
Data cubes provide fast access to pre computed, summarized data, thereby benefiting
on-line analytical processing as well as data mining.

The cube created at the lowest level of abstraction is referred to as the base cuboid.
A cube for the highest level of abstraction is the apex cuboid. The lowest level of a data
cube (base cuboid). Data cubes created for varying levels of abstraction are sometimes
referred to as cuboids, so that a ―data cube" may instead refer to a lattice of cuboids. Each
higher level of abstraction further reduces the resulting data size.
71
The following database consists of sales per quarter for the years 1997-1999.

Suppose, the analyzer interested in the annual sales rather than sales per quarter, the above
data can be aggregated so that the resulting data summarizes the total sales per year instead
of per quarter. The resulting data in smaller in volume, without loss of information
necessary for the analysis task.

Dimensionality Reduction

It reduces the data set size by removing irrelevant attributes. This is a method of attribute
subset selection are applied. A heuristic method of attribute of sub set selection is
explained here:

Attribute sub selection / Feature selection

Feature selection is a must for any data mining product. That is because, when you build
a data mining model, the dataset frequently contains more information than is needed to
build the model. For example, a dataset may contain 500 columns that describe
characteristics of customers, but perhaps only 50 of those columns are used to build a
particular model. If you keep the unneeded columns while building the model, more CPU
and memory are required during the training process, and more storage space is required
for the completed model.

In which select a minimum set of features such that the probability distribution of
different classes given the values for those features is as close as possible to the original
distribution given the values of all features

Basic heuristic methods of attribute subset selection include the following

techniques, some of which are illustrated below:

72
1. Step-wise forward selection: The procedure starts with an empty set of attributes. The
best of the original attributes is determined and added to the set. At each subsequent
iteration or step, the best of the remaining original attributes is added to the set.

2. Step-wise backward elimination: The procedure starts with the full set of attributes.
At each step, it removes the worst attribute remaining in the set.

3. Combination forward selection and backward elimination: The step-wise forward

selection and backward elimination methods can be combined, where at each step one
selects the best attribute and removes the worst from among the remaining attributes.

4. Decision tree induction: Decision tree induction constructs a flow-chart-like structure

where each internal (non-leaf) node denotes a test on an attribute, each branch
corresponds to an outcome of the test, and each external (leaf) node denotes a class
prediction. At each node, the algorithm chooses the ―best" attribute to partition the
data into individual classes. When decision tree induction is used for attribute subset
selection, a tree is constructed from the given data. All attributes that do not appear in the
tree are assumed to be irrelevant. The set of attributes appearing in the tree form the
reduced subset of attributes.

Wrapper approach/Filter approach:

The mining algorithm itself is used to determine the attribute sub set, then it is called
wrapper approach or filter approach. Wrapper approach leads to greater accuracy since it

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optimizes the evaluation measure of the algorithm while removing attributes.

Data compression

In data compression, data encoding or transformations are applied so as to obtain a reduced

or ―compressed" representation of the original data. If the original data can be
reconstructed from the compressed data without any loss of information, the data
compression technique used is called lossless. If, instead, we can reconstruct only an
approximation of the original data, then the data compression technique is called lossy.
Effective methods of lossy data compression:

 Wavelet transforms
 Principal components analysis.

Wavelet compression is a form of data compression well suited for image

compression. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is a linear signal processing
technique that, when applied to a data vector D, transforms it to a numerically different
vector, D0, of wavelet coefficients.

The general algorithm for a discrete wavelet transform is as follows.

1. The length, L, of the input data vector must be an integer power of two. This
condition can be met by padding the data vector with zeros, as necessary.

2. Each transform involves applying two functions:

 data smoothing
 calculating weighted difference

3. The two functions are applied to pairs of the input data, resulting in two sets of data
of length L/2.

4. The two functions are recursively applied to the sets of data obtained in the previous
loop, until the resulting data sets obtained are of desired length.

5. A selection of values from the data sets obtained in the above iterations are designated
the wavelet coefficients of the transformed data.

If wavelet coefficients are larger than some user-specified threshold then it can be retained.
The remaining coefficients are set to 0.

Haar2 and Daubechie4 are two popular wavelet transforms.

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Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
-also called as Karhunen-Loeve (K-L)
method Procedure
• Given N data vectors from k-dimensions, find c <= k orthogonal vectors that
can be best used to represent data
– The original data set is reduced (projected) to one consisting of N
data vectors on c principal components (reduced dimensions)
• Each data vector is a linear combination of the c principal component
vectors • Works for ordered and unordered attributes
• Used when the number of dimensions is large

The principal components (new set of axes) give important information about variance.
Using the strongest components one can reconstruct a good approximation of the original
signal.

Numerosity Reduction
Data volume can be reduced by choosing alternative smaller forms of data. This tech.
can be

 Parametric method
 Non parametric method
Parametric: Assume the data fits some model, then estimate model parameters, and store
only the parameters, instead of actual data.
Non parametric: In which histogram, clustering and sampling is used to store
reduced form of data.

Numerosity reduction techniques:

1 Regression and log linear models:

 Can be used to approximate the given data
 In linear regression, the data are modeled to fit a straight line
using Y = α + β X, where α, β are coefficients
• Multiple regression: Y = b0 + b1 X1 + b2 X2.
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 – Many nonlinear functions can be transformed into the above.
Log-linear model: The multi-way table of joint probabilities is approximated by a
product of lower-order tables.

Probability: p(a, b, c, d) = ab acad bcd

2 Histogram

 Divide data into buckets and store average (sum) for each bucket
 A bucket represents an attribute-value/frequency pair
 It can be constructed optimally in one dimension using dynamic programming
 It divides up the range of possible values in a data set into classes or groups.
For
each group, a rectangle (bucket) is constructed with a base length equal to the range
of values in that specific group, and an area proportional to the number of
observations falling into that group.
 The buckets are displayed in a horizontal axis while height of a bucket
represents the average frequency of the values.

Example:
The following data are a list of prices of commonly sold items. The numbers have
been sorted.
1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 12, 14, 14, 14, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 15, 18, 18, 18,

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18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 21, 21, 21, 21, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 28, 28,
30, 30, 30. Draw histogram plot for price where each bucket should have equi-width of
10

The buckets can be determined based on the following partitioning rules, including the
following.
1. Equi-width: histogram with bars having the same
width 2. Equi-depth: histogram with bars having the
same height
3.
V-Optimal: histogram with least variance (countb*valueb)
4.
MaxDiff: bucket boundaries defined by user specified threshold

V-Optimal and MaxDiff histograms tend to be the most accurate and practical.
Histograms are highly effective at approximating both sparse and dense data, as well as
highly skewed, and uniform data.

Clustering techniques consider data tuples as objects. They partition the objects into
groups or clusters, so that objects within a cluster are ―similar" to one
another and ―dissimilar" to objects in other clusters. Similarity is commonly defined
in terms of how ―close" the objects are in space, based on a distance function.

Quality of clusters measured by their diameter (max distance between any two objects in
the cluster) or centroid distance (avg. distance of each cluster object from its centroid)

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Sampling
Sampling can be used as a data reduction technique since it allows a large data set to be

represented by a much smaller random sample (or subset) of the data. Suppose that a large
data set, D, contains N tuples. Let's have a look at some possible samples for D.

1. Simple random sample without replacement (SRSWOR) of size n: This is created

by drawing n of the
N tuples from D (n < N), where the probably of drawing any tuple in D is 1=N, i.e., all
tuples are equally likely.
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2. Simple random sample with replacement (SRSWR) of size n: This is similar to
SRSWOR, except that each time a tuple is drawn from D, it is recorded and then
replaced. That is, after a tuple is drawn, it is placed back in D so that it may be drawn
again.
3. Cluster sample: If the tuples in D are grouped into M mutually disjoint ―clusters",
then a SRS of m clusters can be obtained, where m < M. For example, tuples in a database
are usually retrieved a page at a time, so that each page can be considered a cluster. A
reduced data representation can be obtained by applying, say, SRSWOR to the pages,
resulting in a cluster sample of the tuples.

4. Stratified sample: If D is divided into mutually disjoint parts called ―strata",

a stratified sample of D is generated by obtaining a SRS at each stratum. This helps to
ensure a representative sample, especially when the data are skewed. For example, a
stratified sample may be obtained from customer data, where stratum is created for each
customer age group. In this way, the age group having the smallest number of customers
will be sure to be represented.

Advantages of sampling

1. An advantage of sampling for data reduction is that the cost of obtaining a sample
is proportional to the size of the sample, n, as opposed to N, the data set size.
Hence, sampling complexity is potentially sub-linear to the size of the data.

2. When applied to data reduction, sampling is most commonly used to estimate

the answer to an aggregate query.

Discretization and concept hierarchies

Discretization:

Discretization techniques can be used to reduce the number of values for a given
continuous attribute, by dividing the range of the attribute into intervals. Interval labels
can then be used to replace actual data values.

Concept Hierarchy

A concept hierarchy for a given numeric attribute defines a Discretization of the

attribute. Concept hierarchies can be used to reduce the data by collecting and replacing
low level concepts (such as numeric values for the attribute age) by higher level concepts
(such as young, middle-aged, or senior).
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Discretization and Concept hierarchy for numerical data:

Three types of attributes:

Nominal — values from an unordered set, e.g., color, profession
Ordinal — values from an ordered set, e.g., military or
academic rank Continuous — real numbers, e.g., integer or real
numbers
There are five methods for numeric concept hierarchy generation.
These include: 1. Binning
, 2. histogram analysis, 3. clustering analysis,
4. entropy-based Discretization, and
5. data segmentation by ―natural partitioning".
An information-based measure called ―entropy" can be used to recursively partition the
values of a numeric attribute A, resulting in a hierarchical Discretization.
Procedure:

5. Segmentation by Natural Partitioning

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Example:

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Suppose that profits at different branches of a company for the year 1997 cover a wide
range, from -$351,976.00 to $4,700,896.50. A user wishes to have a concept hierarchy
for profit automatically generated

Suppose that the data within the 5%-tile and 95%-tile are between -$159,876 and
$1,838,761. The results of applying the 3-4-5 rule are shown in following figure

Step 1: Based on the above information, the minimum and maximum values are: MIN
= -$351, 976.00, and MAX = $4, 700, 896.50. The low (5%-tile) and high (95%-tile)
values to be considered for the top or first level of segmentation are: LOW = -$159, 876,
and HIGH = $1, 838,761.
Step 2: Given LOW and HIGH, the most significant digit is at the million dollar digit
position (i.e., msd =
1,000,000). Rounding LOW down to the million dollar digit, we get LOW‘ = -$1; 000;
000; and rounding
HIGH up to the million dollar digit, we get HIGH‘ = +$2; 000; 000.

Step 3: Since this interval ranges over 3 distinct values at the most significant digit, i.e.,
(2; 000; 000-(-1, 000; 000))/1, 000, 000 = 3, the segment is partitioned into 3 equi-width
sub segments according to the 3-4-5 rule: (-$1,000,000 - $0], ($0 -
$1,000,000], and ($1,000,000 - $2,000,000]. This represents the top tier of the hierarchy.

Step 4: We now examine the MIN and MAX values to see how they ―fit" into the
first level partitions. Since the first interval, (-$1, 000, 000 - $0] covers the MIN value, i.e.,
LOW‘ < MIN, we can adjust the left boundary of this interval to make the interval
smaller. The most
significant digit of MIN is the hundred thousand digit position. Rounding MIN down to
this position, we get MIN0‘ = -$400, 000.
Therefore, the first interval is redefined as (-$400,000 - 0]. Since the last
interval, ($1,000,000-$2,000,000] does not cover the MAX value, i.e., MAX > HIGH‘, we
need to create a new interval to cover it. Rounding up MAX at its most significant digit
position, the new interval is ($2,000,000 - $5,000,000]. Hence, the top most level of the
hierarchy contains four partitions, (-$400,000 - $0], ($0 - $1,000,000], ($1,000,000
- $2,000,000], and ($2,000,000 - $5,000,000].
Step 5: Recursively, each interval can be further partitioned according to the 3-4-5 rule to
form the next lower level of the hierarchy:
- The first interval (-$400,000 - $0] is partitioned into 4 sub-intervals: (-$400,000 -
-$300,000], (-$300,000 - -$200,000], (-$200,000 - -$100,000], and (-$100,000 -
$0].

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 - The second interval, ($0- $1,000,000], is partitioned into 5 sub-intervals: ($0
-$200,000], ($200,000 - $400,000], ($400,000 - $600,000], ($600,000 -
$800,000], and ($800,000 -$1,000,000].
- The third interval, ($1,000,000 - $2,000,000], is partitioned into 5 sub-
intervals: ($1,000,000 - $1,200,000], ($1,200,000 - $1,400,000], ($1,400,000 -
$1,600,000], ($1,600,000 - $1,800,000], and ($1,800,000 - $2,000,000].
- The last interval, ($2,000,000 - $5,000,000], is partitioned into 3 sub-
intervals: ($2,000,000 - $3,000,000], ($3,000,000 - $4,000,000], and
($4,000,000 -$5,000,000].

Concept hierarchy generation for category data

A concept hierarchy defines a sequence of mappings from set of low-level concepts

to higher-level, more general concepts.
It organizes the values of attributes or dimension into gradual levels of abstraction. They
are useful in mining at multiple levels of abstraction

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