Data Mining:

Concepts and Techniques

(3rd ed.)

— Chapter 3 —
Jiawei Han, Micheline Kamber, and Jian Pei
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign &
Simon Fraser University
©2011 Han, Kamber & Pei. All rights reserved.
1
 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
2
 Data Quality: Why Preprocess the Data?

 Measures for data quality: A multidimensional view

 Accuracy: correct or wrong, accurate or not
 Completeness: not recorded, unavailable, …
 Consistency: some modified but some not, dangling, …
 Timeliness: timely update?
 Believability: how trustable the data are correct?
 Interpretability: how easily the data can be
understood?
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data cleaning
 Fill in missing values, smooth noisy data, identify or remove outliers,
and resolve inconsistencies
 Data integration
 Integration of multiple databases, data cubes, or files
 Data reduction
 Dimensionality reduction
 Numerosity reduction: data are replaced by alternative, smaller
representations
 Data compression
 Data transformation and data discretization
 Normalization
 Concept hierarchy generation and data discretization: raw data
values for attributes are replaced by ranges or higher conceptual
levels. Example: raw values for age may be replaced by higher-level
concepts, such as youth, adult, or senior.
 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
5
 Data Cleaning
 Data in the Real World Is Dirty: Lots of potentially incorrect data,
e.g., instrument faulty, human or computer error, transmission error
 incomplete: lacking attribute values, lacking certain attributes of
interest, or containing only aggregate data
 e.g., Occupation=“ ” (missing data)
 noisy: containing noise, errors, or outliers
 e.g., Salary=“−10” (an error)
 inconsistent: containing discrepancies in codes or names, e.g.,
 Age=“42”, Birthday=“03/07/2010”
 Was rating “1, 2, 3”, now rating “A, B, C”
 discrepancy between duplicate records
 Intentional (e.g., disguised missing data)
 Jan. 1 as everyone’s birthday?
 Incomplete (Missing) Data

 Data is not always available

 E.g., many tuples have no recorded value for several
attributes, such as customer income in sales data
 Missing data may be due to
 equipment malfunction
 inconsistent with other recorded data and thus
deleted
 data not entered due to misunderstanding
 certain data may not be considered important at the
time of entry
 not register history or changes of the data
 Missing data may need to be inferred
 How to Handle Missing Data?
 Ignore the tuple: usually done when class label is missing
(when doing classification)—not effective when the % of
missing values per attribute varies considerably
 Fill in the missing value manually: tedious + infeasible?
 Fill in it automatically with
 a global constant : e.g., “unknown”, a new class?!
 the attribute mean
 the attribute mean for all samples belonging to the
same class: smarter
 the most probable value: inference-based such as
Bayesian formula or decision tree
 Noisy Data
 Noise: random error or variance in a measured variable
 Incorrect attribute values may be due to
 faulty data collection instruments

 data entry problems

 data transmission problems

 technology limitation

 inconsistency in naming convention

 Other data problems which require data cleaning

 duplicate records

 incomplete data

 inconsistent data

9
 How to Handle Noisy Data?
 Binning
 first sort data and partition into (equal-frequency) bins

 then one can smooth by bin means, smooth by bin median,

smooth by bin boundaries, etc.

 Regression
 smooth by fitting the data into regression functions

 Linear regression involves finding the “best” line to

fit two attributes (or variables) so that one attribute can be
used to predict the other.
 Clustering: Similar values are organized into groups, or
“clusters”. The values that fall outside of the set of clusters
may be considered outliers
 Outliers may be detected by clustering

 detect and remove outliers

 Combined computer and human inspection

 detect suspicious values and check by human (e.g., deal

with possible outliers)

Binning methods for data smoothing
Outliers may be detected as values that fall
outside of the cluster sets
 Data Cleaning as a Process
 Data discrepancy detection: Discrepancies can be caused by several
factors, including poorly designed data entry forms that have many
optional fields, human error in data entry, deliberate errors (e.g.,
respondents not wanting to divulge information about themselves),
and data decay (e.g., outdated addresses).
 Use metadata (e.g., domain, range, dependency, distribution)

 Check field overloading

 Check uniqueness rule, consecutive rule and null rule

 Use commercial tools

 Data scrubbing: use simple domain knowledge (e.g., postal

code, spell-check) to detect errors and make corrections

 Data auditing: by analyzing data to discover rules and

relationship to detect violators (e.g., correlation and clustering

to find outliers)
 Data migration and integration
 Data migration tools: allow transformations to be specified

 ETL (Extraction/Transformation/Loading) tools: allow users to

specify transformations through a graphical user interface

 Integration of the two processes
 Iterative and interactive (e.g., Potter’s Wheels)
 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
14
 Data Integration
 Data integration:
 Combines data from multiple sources into a coherent store
 Schema integration: e.g., A.cust-id  B.cust-#
 Integrate metadata from different sources
 Entity identification problem:
 Identify real world entities from multiple data sources, e.g., Bill
Clinton = William Clinton
 Detecting and resolving data value conflicts
 For the same real world entity, attribute values from different
sources are different
 Possible reasons: different representations, different scales, e.g.,
metric vs. British units
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 Handling Redundancy in Data Integration

 Redundant data occur often when integration of multiple

databases
 Object identification: The same attribute or object
may have different names in different databases
 Derivable data: One attribute may be a “derived”
attribute in another table, e.g., annual revenue
 Redundant attributes may be able to be detected by
correlation analysis and covariance analysis
 Careful integration of the data from multiple sources may
help reduce/avoid redundancies and inconsistencies and
improve mining speed and quality
16
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
 The Chi Square statistic is commonly used for testing relationships
between categorical variables such as Gender {Men, Women} or
color {Red, Yellow, Green, Blue} etc, but not numerical data such as
height or weight.
 The null hypothesis of the Chi-Square test is that no relationship
exists on the categorical variables in the population; they are
independent.
 The Chi-Square statistic is most commonly used to evaluate Tests of
Independence
 The Test of Independence assesses whether an association exists
between the two variables by comparing the observed pattern of
responses in the cells to the pattern that would be expected.
 Calculate the Chi-Square statistic and comparing it against a critical
value from the Chi-Square distribution
 The Chi-Square Test gives a "p" value to help you decide!
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
 Χ2 (chi-square) test
(Observed  Expected ) 2
2  
Expected
 The larger the Χ2 value, the more likely the variables are
related
 The cells that contribute the most to the Χ2 value are
those whose actual count is very different from the
expected count
 If the hypothesis can be rejected, then we say that A and
B are statistically correlated.
 Correlation does not imply causality
 # of hospitals and # of car-theft in a city are correlated
 Both are causally linked to the third variable: population
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
Example:chi-square test
"Which holiday do you prefer?"
Beach Cruise
Men 209 280
Women 225 248
Does Gender affect Preferred Holiday?

If Gender (Man or Woman) does affect Preferred Holiday we say they

are dependent.
By doing some special calculations (explained later), we come up with a
"p" value: Let p value is 0.132
Now, p < 0.05 is the usual test for dependence. In this case p is greater
than 0.05, so we believe the variables are independent (ie not linked
together).
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
In other words Men and Women probably do not have a different
preference for Beach Holidays or Cruises.

It was just random differences which we expect when collecting data.

"p" is the probability that variables are independent.

 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
Example: "Which pet do you prefer?"
Cat Dog
Men 207 282
Women 231 242
By doing the calculations (shown later), we come up with:

P value is 0.043

In this case p < 0.05, so this result is thought of as being "significant"

meaning we think the variables are not independent.

In other words, because 0.043 < 0.05 we think that Gender is linked to
Pet Preference (Men and Women have different preferences for Cats
and Dogs).
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
To calculate this p-value, we use the Chi-Square Test!

Our first step is to state our hypotheses:

Hypothesis: A statement that might be true, which can then be tested.

The two hypotheses are.

H0: Gender and preference for cats or dogs are independent.
H1: Gender and preference for cats or dogs are dependent.

Lay the data out in a table:

Cat Dog
Men 207 282
Women 231 242
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
Add up rows and columns:
Cat Dog
Men 207 282 489
Women 231 242 473
438 524 962

Calculate "Expected Value" for each entry: Multiply each row total by
each column total and divide by the overall total:
Cat Dog
Men 489×438/962 489×524/962 489
Women 473×438/962 473×524/962 473
438 524 962
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
Which gives us:
Cat Dog
Men 222.64 266.36 489
Women 215.36 257.64 473
438 524 962

Subtract expected from observed, square it, then divide by expected:

In other words, use formula (O−E)2/E, where O = Observed (actual)
value, and E = Expected value
 Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)

Now add up those calculated values:

1.099 + 0.918 + 1.136 + 0.949 = 4.102
Chi-Square is 4.102
From Chi-Square to p
First we need a "Degree of Freedom"
Degree of Freedom = (rows − 1) × (columns − 1)
For our example we have 2 rows and 2 columns:
DF = (2 − 1)(2 − 1) = 1×1 = 1
Use the Chi-Square table to compute p-value=0.04283
 Chi-Square Calculation: An Example

Play chess Not play chess Sum (row)

Like science fiction 250(90) 200(360) 450

Not like science fiction 50(210) 1000(840) 1050

Sum(col.) 300 1200 1500

 Χ2 (chi-square) calculation (numbers in parenthesis are

expected counts calculated based on the data distribution
in the two categories)
(250  90) 2 (50  210) 2 (200  360) 2 (1000  840) 2
 
2
    507.93
90 210 360 840
 It shows that like_science_fiction and play_chess are
correlated in the group
 Correlation Analysis (Numeric Data)
 Correlation is used to test relationships between
quantitative variables.
 In other words, it’s a measure of how things are related.
 The study of how variables are correlated is called
correlation analysis.
 Correlation between sets of data is a measure of how well
they are related.
 The most common measure of correlation is Pearson
Correlation.
 The full name is the Pearson Product Moment Correlation
(PPMC).
 It shows the linear relationship between two sets of data.
 Correlation Analysis (Numeric Data)

 Correlation coefficient (also called Pearson’s product

moment coefficient)

i 1 (ai  A)(bi  B) 
n n
(ai bi )  n AB
rA, B   i 1

(n  1) A B (n  1) A B

where n is the number of tuples, A and B are the respective

means of A and B, σA and σB are the respective standard deviation
of A and B, and Σ(aibi) is the sum of the AB cross-product.
 If rA,B > 0, A and B are positively correlated (A’s values
increase as B’s). The higher, the stronger correlation.
 rA,B = 0: independent; rAB < 0: negatively correlated
 Correlation Analysis (Numeric Data)

 Example: Calculate the correlation for the following two

data sets:
 X: (41, 19, 23, 40, 55, 57, 33)
 Y: (94, 60, 74, 71, 82, 76, 61)
Visually Evaluating Correlation

Scatter plots
showing the
similarity from
–1 to 1.
Correlation (viewed as linear relationship)
 Correlation measures the linear relationship
between objects
 To compute correlation, we standardize data
objects, A and B, and then take their dot product

a 'k  (ak  mean( A)) / std ( A)

b'k  (bk  mean( B)) / std ( B )

correlatio n( A, B)  A' B'

 Covariance (Numeric Data)
 Covariance is a measure of how much two random
variables vary together.
 It’s similar to variance, but variance tells you how a single
variable varies, covariance tells you how two variables
vary together.
 Covariance provides a measure of the strength of the
correlation between two or more sets of random variates.
 Covariance is a measure of the relationship between two
random variables.
 The variance can take any positive or negative values.
 Positive covariance: Indicates that two variables tend

to move in the same direction.

 Negative covariance: Reveals that two variables tend

to move in inverse directions.

 Covariance (Numeric Data)
 Covariance is similar to correlation

Correlation coefficient:

where n is the number of tuples, A and

B are the respective mean or
expected values of A and B, σA and σB are the respective standard
deviation of A and B.
 Positive covariance: If CovA,B > 0, then A and B both tend to be larger
than their expected values.
 Negative covariance: If CovA,B < 0 then if A is larger than its expected
value, B is likely to be smaller than its expected value.
 Independence: CovA,B = 0 but the converse is not true:
 Some pairs of random variables may have a covariance of 0 but are not
independent. Only under some additional assumptions (e.g., the data follow
multivariate normal distributions) does a covariance of 0 imply independence
 Co-Variance: An Example
 Calculate covariance for the following data set:
 x: 2.1, 2.5, 3.6, 4.0 (mean = 3.1)
 y: 8, 10, 12, 14 (mean = 11)

Cov(X,Y) =
= (2.1-3.1)(8-11)+(2.5-3.1)(10-11)+(3.6-3.1)(12-11)+(4.0-3.1)(14-
11) /(4-1)
= (-1)(-3) + (-0.6)(-1)+(.5)(1)+(0.9)(3) / 3
= 3 + 0.6 + .5 + 2.7 / 3= 6.8/3= 2.267
 The result is positive, meaning that the variables are positively
related.
 Co-Variance: An Example

 It can be simplified in computation as

 Suppose two stocks A and B have the following values in one week:
(2, 5), (3, 8), (5, 10), (4, 11), (6, 14).
 Question: If the stocks are affected by the same industry trends, will
their prices rise or fall together?
 E(A) = (2 + 3 + 5 + 4 + 6)/ 5 = 20/5 = 4
 E(B) = (5 + 8 + 10 + 11 + 14) /5 = 48/5 = 9.6
 Cov(A,B) = (2×5+3×8+5×10+4×11+6×14)/5 − 4 × 9.6 = 4
 Thus, A and B rise together since Cov(A, B) > 0.
 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
36
 Data Reduction Strategies
 Data reduction: Obtain a reduced representation of the data set that
is much smaller in volume but yet produces the same (or almost the
same) analytical results
 Why data reduction? — A database/data warehouse may store
terabytes of data. Complex data analysis may take a very long time to
run on the complete data set.
 Data reduction strategies
 Dimensionality reduction, e.g., remove unimportant attributes

 Wavelet transforms

 Principal Components Analysis (PCA)

 Feature subset selection, feature creation

 Numerosity reduction (some simply call it: Data Reduction)

 Regression and Log-Linear Models

 Histograms, clustering, sampling

 Data cube aggregation

 Data compression
Data Reduction 1: Dimensionality Reduction
 Curse of dimensionality
 When dimensionality increases, data becomes increasingly sparse
 Density and distance between points, which is critical to clustering, outlier
analysis, becomes less meaningful
 The possible combinations of subspaces will grow exponentially
 Dimensionality reduction
 Avoid the curse of dimensionality
 Help eliminate irrelevant features and reduce noise
 Reduce time and space required in data mining
 Allow easier visualization
 Dimensionality reduction techniques
 Wavelet transforms
 Principal Component Analysis
 Supervised and nonlinear techniques (e.g., feature selection)
 What Is Wavelet Transform?
 Decomposes a signal into
different frequency subbands
 Applicable to n-
dimensional signals
 Data are transformed to
preserve relative distance
between objects at different
levels of resolution
 Allow natural clusters to
become more distinguishable
 Used for image compression
 Why Wavelet Transform?
 Use hat-shape filters
 Emphasize region where points cluster

 Suppress weaker information in their boundaries

 Effective removal of outliers

 Insensitive to noise, insensitive to input order

 Multi-resolution
 Detect arbitrary shaped clusters at different scales

 Efficient
 Complexity O(N)

 Only applicable to low dimensional data

 Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
 Find a projection that captures the largest amount of variation in data
 The original data are projected onto a much smaller space, resulting
in dimensionality reduction. We find the eigenvectors of the
covariance matrix, and these eigenvectors define the new space

x2

x1
 Principal Component Analysis (Steps)
 Given N data vectors from n-dimensions, find k ≤ n orthogonal vectors
(principal components) that can be best used to represent data
 Normalize input data: Each attribute falls within the same range
 Compute k orthonormal (unit) vectors, i.e., principal components
 Each input data (vector) is a linear combination of the k principal
component vectors
 The principal components are sorted in order of decreasing
“significance” or strength
 Since the components are sorted, the size of the data can be
reduced by eliminating the weak components, i.e., those with low
variance (i.e., using the strongest principal components, it is
possible to reconstruct a good approximation of the original data)
 Works for numeric data only
 Attribute Subset Selection
 Another way to reduce dimensionality of data
 Redundant attributes
 Duplicate much or all of the information contained in
one or more other attributes
 E.g., purchase price of a product and the amount of
sales tax paid
 Irrelevant attributes
 Contain no information that is useful for the data
mining task at hand
 E.g., students' ID is often irrelevant to the task of
predicting students' GPA
 Heuristic Search in Attribute Selection
 There are 2d possible attribute combinations of d attributes
 Typical heuristic attribute selection methods:
 Best single attribute under the attribute independence

assumption: choose by significance tests

 Best step-wise feature selection:

 The best single-attribute is picked first

 Then next best attribute condition to the first, ...

 Step-wise attribute elimination:

 Repeatedly eliminate the worst attribute

 Best combined attribute selection and elimination

 Optimal branch and bound:

 Use attribute elimination and backtracking

 Attribute Creation (Feature Generation)
 Create new attributes (features) that can capture the
important information in a data set more effectively than
the original ones
 Three general methodologies
 Attribute extraction

 Domain-specific

 Mapping data to new space (see: data reduction)

 E.g., Fourier transformation, wavelet

transformation, manifold approaches (not covered)

 Attribute construction

 Combining features (see: discriminative frequent

patterns in Chapter 7)
 Data discretization

45
Data Reduction 2: Numerosity Reduction
 Reduce data volume by choosing alternative, smaller
forms of data representation
 Parametric methods (e.g., regression)
 Assume the data fits some model, estimate model

parameters, store only the parameters, and discard

the data (except possible outliers)
 Ex.: Log-linear models—obtain value at a point in m-

D space as the product on appropriate marginal

subspaces
 Non-parametric methods
 Do not assume models

 Major families: histograms, clustering, sampling, …

 Parametric Data Reduction: Regression
and Log-Linear Models
 Linear regression
 Data modeled to fit a straight line

 Often uses the least-square method to fit the line

 Multiple regression
 Allows a response variable Y to be modeled as a

linear function of multidimensional feature vector

 Log-linear model
 Approximates discrete multidimensional probability

distributions
 y
Regression Analysis
Y1
 Regression analysis: A collective name for
techniques for the modeling and analysis Y1’
y=x+1
of numerical data consisting of values of a
dependent variable (also called
response variable or measurement) and X1 x
of one or more independent variables (aka.
explanatory variables or predictors)  Used for prediction
 The parameters are estimated so as to (including forecasting of
give a "best fit" of the data time-series data), inference,
hypothesis testing, and
 Most commonly the best fit is evaluated by
modeling of causal
using the least squares method, but
relationships
other criteria have also been used
 Regress Analysis and Log-Linear Models
 Linear regression: Y = w X + b
 Two regression coefficients, w and b, specify the line and are to be
estimated by using the data at hand
 Using the least squares criterion to the known values of Y1, Y2, …,
X1, X2, ….
 Multiple regression: Y = b0 + b1 X1 + b2 X2
 Many nonlinear functions can be transformed into the above
 Log-linear models:
 Approximate discrete multidimensional probability distributions
 Estimate the probability of each point (tuple) in a multi-dimensional
space for a set of discretized attributes, based on a smaller subset
of dimensional combinations
 Useful for dimensionality reduction and data smoothing
 Histogram Analysis
 Divide data into buckets and 40
store average (sum) for each 35
bucket 30
 Partitioning rules: 25
 Equal-width: equal bucket 20
range
15
 Equal-frequency (or equal- 10
depth)
5
0
30000
10000

20000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

100000
 Clustering
 Partition data set into clusters based on similarity, and
store cluster representation (e.g., centroid and diameter)
only
 Can be very effective if data is clustered but not if data
is “smeared”
 Can have hierarchical clustering and be stored in multi-
dimensional index tree structures
 There are many choices of clustering definitions and
clustering algorithms
 Cluster analysis will be studied in depth in Chapter 10
 Sampling

 Sampling: Sampling is a technique of selecting individual

members or a subset of the population to make statistical
inferences from them and estimate characteristics of the
whole population.
 Sampling methods refer to how we select members from
the population to be in the study.
 It obtain a small sample s to represent the whole data set
N
 Types of sampling
 Probability sampling
 Non-probability sampling
 Sampling

 Probability sampling:All the members have an equal

opportunity to be a part of the sample randomly with
some selection parameter or criteria.
 For example, in a population of 1000 members, every
member will have a 1/1000 chance of being selected to be
a part of a sample. Probability sampling eliminates bias in
the population and gives all members a fair chance to be
included in the sample.
 Non-probability sampling:This sampling method is not a
fixed or predefined selection process. This makes it
difficult for all elements of a population to have equal
opportunities to be included in a sample.
 Sampling

 There are four types of probability sampling techniques

 Simple random sampling
 Cluster sampling
 Systematic sampling
 Stratified random sampling
There are four types of non-probability sampling


 Convenience sampling
 Judgmental or purposive sampling
 Snowball sampling
 Quota sampling
 Sampling

 Simple random sampling: Every single member of a

population is chosen randomly, merely by chance. Each
individual has the same probability of being chosen to be
a part of a sample.
 Cluster sampling: It is a method where the researchers
divide the entire population into sections or clusters that
represent a population.
 Systematic sampling: choose the sample members of a
population at regular intervals. It requires the selection of
a starting point for the sample and sample size that can
be repeated at regular intervals. This type of sampling
method has a predefined range
 Sampling
 Stratified random sampling: It is a method in which the
researcher divides the population into smaller groups that
don’t overlap but represent the entire population.
 Sampling

 Non-probability sampling methods: In a non-probability

sample, individuals are selected based on non-random
criteria, and not every individual has a chance of being
included.
 Convenience sampling: This method is dependent on the ease of
access to subjects such as surveying customers at a mall or a
street. It is usually termed as convenience sampling, because of
the researcher’s ease of carrying it out and getting in touch with
the subjects.
 Judgmental or purposive sampling: It purely considered the
purpose of the study, along with the understanding of the target
audience.
 Sampling

 Snowball sampling: It is a sampling method that researchers apply

when the subjects are difficult to trace.
 Quota sampling: The selection of members in this sampling
technique happens based on a pre-set standard. In this case, as a
sample is formed based on specific attributes, the created sample
will have the same qualities found in the total population. It is a
rapid method of collecting samples.
Sampling
 Types of Sampling

 Simple random sampling

 There is an equal probability of selecting any particular

item
 Sampling without replacement
 Once an object is selected, it is removed from the

population
 Sampling with replacement
 A selected object is not removed from the population

 Stratified sampling:
 Partition the data set, and draw samples from each

partition (proportionally, i.e., approximately the same

percentage of the data)
 Used in conjunction with skewed data
Sampling: With or without Replacement

W O R
SRS le random
i m p h ou t
( s e wi t
l
samp ment)
pl a ce
re

SRSW
R

Raw Data
Sampling: Cluster or Stratified Sampling

Raw Data Cluster/Stratified Sample

 Data Cube Aggregation

 The lowest level of a data cube (base cuboid)

 The aggregated data for an individual entity of interest
 E.g., a customer in a phone calling data warehouse
 Multiple levels of aggregation in data cubes
 Further reduce the size of data to deal with
 Reference appropriate levels
 Use the smallest representation which is enough to
solve the task
 Queries regarding aggregated information should be
answered using data cube, when possible
 Data Reduction 3: Data Compression
 String compression
 There are extensive theories and well-tuned algorithms

 Typically lossless, but only limited manipulation is

possible without expansion

 Audio/video compression
 Typically lossy compression, with progressive refinement

 Sometimes small fragments of signal can be

reconstructed without reconstructing the whole

 Time sequence is not audio
 Typically short and vary slowly with time

 Dimensionality and numerosity reduction may also be

considered as forms of data compression
 Data Compression

Original Data Compressed

Data
lossless

os sy
l
Original Data
Approximated
 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
 Data Transformation
 A function that maps the entire set of values of a given attribute to a
new set of replacement values s.t. each old value can be identified
with one of the new values
 Methods
 Smoothing: Remove noise from data
 Attribute/feature construction
 New attributes constructed from the given ones
 Aggregation: Summarization, data cube construction
 Normalization: Scaled to fall within a smaller, specified range
 min-max normalization
 z-score normalization
 normalization by decimal scaling
 Discretization: Concept hierarchy climbing
 Normalization
 Min-max normalization: to [new_minA, new_maxA]
v  minA
v'  (new _ maxA  new _ minA)  new _ minA
maxA  minA

 Ex. Let income range $12,000 to $98,000

73,600  12normalized
,000
(1.0  0)  0  to [0.0,
0.716
98,000  12,000
1.0]. Then $73,000 is mapped to
 Z-score normalization (μ: mean, σ: standard deviation):
v  A
v' 
 A

73,600  54,000
 1.225
16,000
 Ex. Let μ = 54,000, σ = 16,000. Then
 Normalization by decimal scaling
v
v' Where j is the smallest integer such that Max(|ν’|) < 1
10 j
 Discretization
 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
 Numeric—real numbers, e.g., integer or real numbers
 Discretization: Divide the range of a continuous attribute into intervals
 Interval labels can then be used to replace actual data values
 Reduce data size by discretization
 Supervised vs. unsupervised
 Split (top-down) vs. merge (bottom-up)
 Discretization can be performed recursively on an attribute
 Prepare for further analysis, e.g., classification
 Data Discretization Methods
 Typical methods: All the methods can be applied
recursively
 Binning
 Top-down split, unsupervised
 Histogram analysis
 Top-down split, unsupervised
 Clustering analysis (unsupervised, top-down split or
bottom-up merge)
 Decision-tree analysis (supervised, top-down split)
 Correlation (e.g., 2) analysis (unsupervised, bottom-up
merge)
70
 Simple Discretization: Binning

 Equal-width (distance) partitioning

 Divides the range into N intervals of equal size: uniform grid
 if A and B are the lowest and highest values of the attribute, the
width of intervals will be: W = (B –A)/N.
 The most straightforward, but outliers may dominate presentation
 Skewed data is not handled well
 Equal-depth (frequency) partitioning
 Divides the range into N intervals, each containing approximately
same number of samples
 Good data scaling
 Managing categorical attributes can be tricky
 Binning Methods for Data Smoothing
 Sorted data for price (in dollars): 4, 8, 9, 15, 21, 21, 24, 25, 26,
28, 29, 34
* Partition into equal-frequency (equi-depth) bins:
- Bin 1: 4, 8, 9, 15
- Bin 2: 21, 21, 24, 25
- Bin 3: 26, 28, 29, 34
* Smoothing by bin means:
- Bin 1: 9, 9, 9, 9
- Bin 2: 23, 23, 23, 23
- Bin 3: 29, 29, 29, 29
* Smoothing by bin boundaries:
- Bin 1: 4, 4, 4, 15
- Bin 2: 21, 21, 25, 25
- Bin 3: 26, 26, 26, 34
Discretization Without Using Class Labels
(Binning vs. Clustering)

Data Equal interval width

(binning)

Equal frequency (binning) K-means clustering leads to better

results
73
 Discretization by Classification &
Correlation Analysis
 Classification (e.g., decision tree analysis)
 Supervised: Given class labels, e.g., cancerous vs. benign
 Using entropy to determine split point (discretization point)
 Top-down, recursive split
 Details to be covered in Chapter 7
 Correlation analysis (e.g., Chi-merge: χ2-based discretization)
 Supervised: use class information
 Bottom-up merge: find the best neighboring intervals (those
having similar distributions of classes, i.e., low χ2 values) to
merge
 Merge performed recursively, until a predefined stopping
74
 Concept Hierarchy Generation
 Concept hierarchy organizes concepts (i.e., attribute values)
hierarchically and is usually associated with each dimension in a data
warehouse
 Concept hierarchies facilitate drilling and rolling in data warehouses to
view data in multiple granularity
 Concept hierarchy formation: Recursively reduce the data by collecting
and replacing low level concepts (such as numeric values for age) by
higher level concepts (such as youth, adult, or senior)
 Concept hierarchies can be explicitly specified by domain experts
and/or data warehouse designers
 Concept hierarchy can be automatically formed for both numeric and
nominal data. For numeric data, use discretization methods shown.
 Concept Hierarchy Generation
for Nominal Data
 Specification of a partial/total ordering of attributes
explicitly at the schema level by users or experts
 street < city < state < country
 Specification of a hierarchy for a set of values by explicit
data grouping
 {Urbana, Champaign, Chicago} < Illinois

 Specification of only a partial set of attributes

 E.g., only street < city, not others

 Automatic generation of hierarchies (or attribute levels) by

the analysis of the number of distinct values
 E.g., for a set of attributes: {street, city, state,

country}
 Automatic Concept Hierarchy Generation
 Some hierarchies can be automatically generated based on
the analysis of the number of distinct values per attribute in
the data set
 The attribute with the most distinct values is placed at

the lowest level of the hierarchy

 Exceptions, e.g., weekday, month, quarter, year

country 15 distinct values

province_or_ state 365 distinct values

city 3567 distinct values

street 674,339 distinct values

 Chapter 3: Data Preprocessing

 Data Preprocessing: An Overview

 Data Quality
 Major Tasks in Data Preprocessing
 Data Cleaning
 Data Integration
 Data Reduction
 Data Transformation and Data Discretization
 Summary
 Summary
 Data quality: accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness,
believability, interpretability
 Data cleaning: e.g. missing/noisy values, outliers
 Data integration from multiple sources:
 Entity identification problem

 Remove redundancies

 Detect inconsistencies

 Data reduction
 Dimensionality reduction

 Numerosity reduction

 Data compression

 Data transformation and data discretization

 Normalization

 Concept hierarchy generation

 References
 D. P. Ballou and G. K. Tayi. Enhancing data quality in data warehouse environments. Comm. of
ACM, 42:73-78, 1999
 A. Bruce, D. Donoho, and H.-Y. Gao. Wavelet analysis. IEEE Spectrum, Oct 1996
 T. Dasu and T. Johnson. Exploratory Data Mining and Data Cleaning. John Wiley, 2003
 J. Devore and R. Peck. Statistics: The Exploration and Analysis of Data. Duxbury Press, 1997.
 H. Galhardas, D. Florescu, D. Shasha, E. Simon, and C.-A. Saita. Declarative data cleaning:
Language, model, and algorithms. VLDB'01
 M. Hua and J. Pei. Cleaning disguised missing data: A heuristic approach. KDD'07
 H. V. Jagadish, et al., Special Issue on Data Reduction Techniques. Bulletin of the Technical
Committee on Data Engineering, 20(4), Dec. 1997
 H. Liu and H. Motoda (eds.). Feature Extraction, Construction, and Selection: A Data Mining
Perspective. Kluwer Academic, 1998
 J. E. Olson. Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension. Morgan Kaufmann, 2003
 D. Pyle. Data Preparation for Data Mining. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999
 V. Raman and J. Hellerstein. Potters Wheel: An Interactive Framework for Data Cleaning and
Transformation, VLDB’2001
 T. Redman. Data Quality: The Field Guide. Digital Press (Elsevier), 2001
 R. Wang, V. Storey, and C. Firth. A framework for analysis of data quality research. IEEE Trans.
Knowledge and Data Engineering, 7:623-640, 1995