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?
 Data have quality if they satisfy the requirements of the
intended use.
 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?

3
 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 compression
 Data transformation and data discretization
 Normalization
 Concept hierarchy generation
4
Form of Data Preprocessing

5
 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
6
 Data Cleaning
 Definition: Data cleaning is the process of
detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or
inaccurate records from a dataset.
 Importance: It involves handling missing values,
smoothing noisy data, and correcting
inconsistencies to improve data quality.

7
 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?
8
 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
9
 How to Handle Missing
Data?
 Methods:
 Ignore the tuple
 Fill in manually
 Use a global constant
 Use attribute mean/median
 Use the most probable value

10
 Ignore the Tuple
 Scenario:Done when the class label is missing or when
missing values are minimal.
 Not effective if the percentage of missing values is high.

 Solution: Remove rows with missing values.

•Pros:Simple and quick.

•Cons:Risk of losing valuable data.

11
 Fill Manually
 Scenario:
 Feasible for small datasets or critical missing

values.
 Requires domain expertise.

 Pros:Accurate if done well.

 Cons:Time-consuming and subjective.

12
 Fill with a Global Constant
Scenario:
Replace missing values with a constant (e.g., "Unknown").
Solution:
Replace missing values with "Unknown."

13
 Fill with a Global Constant
 Pros: Simple and uniform.
 Cons: May reduce data variability and accuracy.

14
 Fill with Mean/Median
 Replace missing values with the column mean or median.

• Pros:Quick and maintains dataset size.

• Cons:Reduces data variance.
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 Predict Missing Values
 Use machine learning models like decision
trees to infer missing values.
 Original dataset is trained to predict
missing values, resulting in
 Pros: Preserves patterns in data.
 Cons:Computationally expensive.

16
 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
17
 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.

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 How to Handle Noisy Data?
 Regression
 smooth by fitting the data into regression

functions
 Regression is used to fit a function to the data and reduce
noise by predicting and smoothing the values. Linear
regression, polynomial regression, or other regression
techniques can model the relationship between variables
and help reduce variability.
 Example:

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Solution with Linear Regression:
•

Fit a regression line: Sales=m⋅Advertisements+c

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 How to Handle Noisy Data?
Clustering
Clustering groups similar data points together, and data points

that don’t belong to any cluster or lie far from cluster centers
are treated as outliers. Techniques like K-means or DBSCAN are
commonly used.

Solution with Clustering: Apply clustering (e.g., K-means).

Cluster 1 (Valid Ages): [25, 27, 24, 26].

Outlier: [120].

Remove the outlier.

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 How to Handle Noisy Data?
 Combined computer and human inspection
 detect suspicious values and check by human

(e.g., deal with possible outliers)

 Automated systems can flag data points that

deviate significantly from the norm. A human

expert reviews flagged values to determine if
they are genuine or errors.

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 Data Cleaning as a Process
 Data discrepancy detection
 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

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 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
24
 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
26
Correlation Analysis (Nominal Data)
 Χ2 (chi-square) test
2
(Observed  Expected )
 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
 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

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 Chi-Square Calculation: An
Example

 Observed Value from Dataset (Contingency

Table)

 Step 1: Hypotheses
 Null Hypothesis (H₀): Gender and preference for online shopping are
independent (no association).
 Alternative Hypothesis (H₁): Gender and preference for online
shopping are not independent (there is an association).

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  Step 2: The expected frequency for each
cell is calculated using the formula:

Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques

04/09/25
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Expected Frequency Table

30
 Step 3: Chi-Square Formula
(Observed  Expected ) 2
 
2

Expected

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 Step 4: Sum the Chi-Square Values

 Step 5: Degrees of Freedom

 Step 6: Determine the Critical Value or p-value

32
Step 7: Interpret the Result

 Step 7: Interpret the Result

33
 Chi-Square Calculation: An
Example

Play Not play Sum

chess chess (row)
Like science fiction 250(90) 200(360) 450
Not like science 50(210) 1000(840) 1050
fiction
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
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Correlation Analysis (Numeric Data)

 Correlation coefficient (also called Pearson’s product

moment coefficient)

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

A B
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
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Visually Evaluating Correlation

Scatter plots
showing the
similarity from
–1 to 1.

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 Covariance (Numeric Data)
 Covariance is similar to correlation

Correlation coefficient:
where n is the number of tuples, and are the respective mean
or expected values of A and B, A σ andBσ are the respective
A B

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
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 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.
 Problem
 A=[1,2,3,4,5]
 B=[10,9,8,7,6]

04/09/25 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 39

Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques
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41
 Final Inference:
The results show the following:

1. Covariance: The covariance between A and B is −2. This indicates

that as the values of A increase, the values of B tend to decrease.
However, covariance alone does not quantify the strength of the
relationship.

2. Correlation: The correlation coefficient between A and B is −1.00,

which represents a perfect negative linear relationship. This
means that for every unit increase in A, there is a proportional
decrease in B, and the points lie exactly on a straight line with a
negative slope.

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4
3

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
43
4
4

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)
4
5

Mapping Data to a New Space

 Fourier transform
 Wavelet transform

Two Sine Waves Two Sine Waves + Noise Frequency

 Wavelet
4
6

Transformation
Haar2 Daubechie4
 Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) for linear signal
processing, multi-resolution analysis
 Compressed approximation: store only a small fraction of
the strongest of the wavelet coefficients
 Similar to discrete Fourier transform (DFT), but better
lossy compression, localized in space
 Method:
 Length, L, must be an integer power of 2 (padding with 0’s, when
necessary)
 Each transform has 2 functions: smoothing, difference
 Applies to pairs of data, resulting in two set of data of length L/2
 Applies two functions recursively, until reaches the desired length
4
7

Wavelet Decomposition
 Wavelets: A math tool for space-efficient
hierarchical decomposition of functions
 S = [2, 2, 0, 2, 3, 5, 4, 4] can be transformed to S^
= [23/4, -11/4, 1/2, 0, 0, -1, -1, 0]
 Compression: many small detail coefficients can
be replaced by 0’s, and only the significant
coefficients are retained
Principal Component Analysis (PCA)
 The original data are thus projected onto a much smaller
space, resulting in dimensionality reduction.

x2

x1
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 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(Sparse data and skewed data)

49
 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

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 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

 step-wise forward selection:


The best single-attribute is picked first

Then next best attribute condition to the first, ...
 Step-wise backward elimination:


Repeatedly eliminate the worst attribute
 Combination of forward selection and backward

elimination

Optimal branch and bound(Decision tree induction):

Use attribute elimination and backtracking
51
Attribute Subset Selection

52
 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


E.g., Height and width gives Area
53
 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, … 54
 Parametric vs. Non-Parametric
Methods

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 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

56
 y
Regression Analysis
Y1
 Regression analysis: A collective name for
techniques for the modeling and analysis of
numerical data consisting of values of a Y1’
y=x+1
dependent variable (also called response
variable or measurement) and of one or more
independent variables (aka. explanatory X1 x
variables or predictors)
 Used for prediction (including
 The parameters are estimated so as to give a forecasting of time-series
"best fit" of the data data), inference, hypothesis
 Most commonly the best fit is evaluated by testing, and modeling of causal
relationships
using the least squares method, but other
criteria have also been used

57
 Linear Regression (Parametric)

• Definition: Models the relationship between dependent and

independent variables using a straight-line equation:

• Instead of storing all data points, we only store the coefficients b0​and b1​. Then, we can
estimate Y values from X, reducing data storage.

58
 Linear Regression (Parametric)

Example:

A company wants to predict employee salaries based on years of experience.

A linear regression model could fit the relationship:

Salary=25000+5000×(Years of Experience)
Now, instead of storing all past salaries, we only store the
equation.
59
 Multiple Regression
 Multiple regression extends linear regression to
multiple independent variables:

How It Helps in Numerosity Reduction:

 Using a mathematical model reduces the need to store entire datasets.

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 Multiple Regression
Example:
A real estate company wants to predict house prices based on:
 X1​= Size of the house (sq. ft.)

 X2​= Number of bedrooms

 X3​= Distance from the city center

A multiple regression equation may look like:

Price=50000+200×(Size)+10000×(Bedrooms)
+5000×(Distance)

Now, instead of storing thousands of transactions, we store

only these coefficients.

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 Log-Linear Models
 A log-linear model is used for analyzing categorical
data by modeling the logarithm of expected cell
frequencies in a contingency table.

Example:
 Consider a dataset of customers classified by income level (low, medium, high)
and purchase behavior (buys, doesn't buy). Instead of storing the entire dataset, a log-
linear model estimates frequencies like:

 we store the parameters instead of raw data.

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 Non-parametric methods:
Histogram Analysis
 A histogram is a data reduction technique where data
values are grouped into bins (intervals), and only
the summary statistics (e.g., counts, mean, min,
max) of each bin are stored instead of individual values.

 How It Helps in Numerosity Reduction:

Instead of storing all data points, a histogram groups values
into ranges and keeps only aggregated counts. This
significantly reduces the dataset size while preserving
essential distribution properties.

63
 Histogram Analysis
 Types of Histograms:
1. Equal-Width Histogram:
1. The data range is divided into bins of equal width.

2. Example: If values range from 0 to 100, and we use 10

bins, each bin covers 10 units (0–10, 10–20, ..., 90–100).

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64
 Histogram Analysis
1. Equal-Frequency Histogram:
1. Each bin contains roughly the same number of data

points.
2. Example: If we have 1000 data points and 10 bins,

each bin contains 100 values.

Store bins instead of raw data.

65
 Clustering
 Partition data set into clusters based on similarity,
and store cluster representation (e.g., centroid
and diameter) only
 Similarity is commonly defined in terms of how
“close” the objects are in space, based on a
distance function
 Centroid distance is an alternative measure of
cluster quality and is defined as the average
distance of each cluster object from the cluster
centroid
Fig. A 2-D customer data plot with respect
to customer locations in a city, showing
three data
clusters. Outliers may be detected as
values that fall outside of the cluster sets.
66
 Sampling

 Sampling: obtaining a small sample s to represent

the whole data set N

 Key principle: Choose a representative subset of

the data
 Simple random sampling may have very poor
performance in the presence of skew
 Develop adaptive sampling methods, e.g.,
stratified sampling:
 Note: Sampling may not reduce database I/Os
(page at a time)
67
 Types of Sampling
 Simple random sample without replacement (SRSWOR) of
size s

There is an equal probability of selecting any particular item

Once an object is selected, it is removed from the population
 Simple random sample with replacement (SRSWR) of size s

A selected object is not removed from the population
 Cluster sample:

If the tuples in D (dataset) are grouped into M mutually disjoint
“clusters,”

then an SRS (Simple random sample) of s clusters can be
obtained, where s <M.
 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
68
 Sampling: Cluster or Stratified
Sampling

Raw Data Cluster/Stratified Sample

69
7
0

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
7
1

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
7
2

Data Compression

Original Data Compressed

Data
lossless

os sy
l
Original Data
Approximated
7
3

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
7
4

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 normalized
73,600  12,000 to [0.0, 1.0].
(1.0  0)  0 0.716
Then $73,000 is mapped to 98 , 000  12, 000

 Z-score normalization (μ: mean, σ: standard deviation):

v  A
v' 
 A

73,600  54,000
1.225
 Ex. Let μ = 54,000, σ = 16,000. Then 16,000
 Normalization by decimal scaling
v
v'  j Where j is the smallest integer such that Max(|ν’|) < 1
10
75
 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
76
 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)
77
 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
78
 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
79
 Class Labels
(Binning vs. Clustering)

Data Equal interval width

(binning)

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

results
80
 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 “Classification”
 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
condition
81
 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
82
 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}
83
 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

84
8
5

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
86
 References
 D. P. Ballou and G. K. Tayi. Enhancing data quality in data warehouse
environments. Comm. of ACM, 42:73-78, 1999
 T. Dasu and T. Johnson. Exploratory Data Mining and Data Cleaning. John
Wiley, 2003
 T. Dasu, T. Johnson, S. Muthukrishnan, V. Shkapenyuk.
Mining Database Structure; Or, How to Build a Data Quality Browser.
SIGMOD’02
 H. V. Jagadish et al., Special Issue on Data Reduction Techniques. Bulletin of
the Technical Committee on Data Engineering, 20(4), Dec. 1997
 D. Pyle. Data Preparation for Data Mining. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999
 E. Rahm and H. H. Do. Data Cleaning: Problems and Current Approaches.
IEEE Bulletin of the Technical Committee on Data Engineering. Vol.23, No.4
 V. Raman and J. Hellerstein. Potters Wheel: An Interactive Framework for
Data Cleaning and Transformation, VLDB’2001
 T. Redman. Data Quality: Management and Technology. Bantam Books, 1992
 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

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