Data Mining:

Concepts and Techniques

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 1

 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Descriptive data summarization
◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 2
 Why Data Preprocessing?
◼ Data in the real world is dirty
◼ incomplete: lacking attribute values, lacking
certain attributes of interest, or containing
only aggregate data
◼ e.g., occupation=“ ”
◼ noisy: containing errors or outliers
◼ e.g., Salary=“-10”
◼ inconsistent: containing discrepancies in codes
or names
◼ e.g., Age=“42” Birthday=“03/07/1997”
◼ e.g., Was rating “1,2,3”, now rating “A, B, C”
◼ e.g., discrepancy between duplicate records
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 3
 Why Is Data Dirty?
◼ 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 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)
◼ Duplicate records also need data cleaning
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 4
 Why Is Data Preprocessing Important?

◼ No quality data, no quality mining results!

◼ Quality decisions must be based on quality data
◼ e.g., duplicate or missing data may cause incorrect or even
misleading statistics.
◼ Data warehouse needs consistent integration of quality
data
◼ Data extraction, cleaning, and transformation comprises
the majority of the work of building a data warehouse

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 5

 Multi-Dimensional Measure of Data Quality

◼ A well-accepted multidimensional view:

◼ Accuracy

◼ Completeness

◼ Consistency

◼ Timeliness

◼ Believability

◼ Value added

◼ Interpretability

◼ Accessibility

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 6

 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 transformation
◼ Normalization and aggregation
◼ 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 7

 Forms of Data Preprocessing

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 8

 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Descriptive data summarization
◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 9
 Mining Data Descriptive Characteristics

◼ Motivation
◼ To better understand the data: central tendency, variation
and spread
◼ Data dispersion characteristics
◼ median, mean, max, min, quantiles, outliers, variance, etc.
◼ Numerical dimensions correspond to sorted intervals
◼ Data dispersion
◼ Boxplot or quantile analysis on sorted intervals

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 10

 Measuring the Central Tendency

=
1 n x
◼ Mean (algebraic measure) (sample vs. population): x =  xi
n i =1 N
◼ Weighted arithmetic mean: n

w x i i

◼ Trimmed mean: chopping extreme values x= i =1

n

w i
◼ Median: A holistic measure i =1

◼ Middle value if odd number of values, or average of the middle two

values otherwise
◼ Mode
◼ Value that occurs most frequently in the data
◼ Unimodal, bimodal, trimodal
◼ Empirical formula:
mean − mode = 3  (mean − median)
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 11
 Symmetric vs. Skewed Data

◼ Median, mean and mode of

symmetric, positively and
negatively skewed data

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 12

 Question: can mean be in the
middle of median and mode?
Income Distribution

1 …. 100K billion

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 13

 Measuring the Dispersion of Data
◼ Quartiles, outliers and boxplots
◼ Quartiles: Q1 (25th percentile), Q3 (75th percentile)
◼ Inter-quartile range: IQR = Q3 – Q1
◼ Five number summary: min, Q1, M, Q3, max
◼ Boxplot: ends of the box are the quartiles, median is marked, whiskers (min
/ max), and plot outlier individually
◼ Outlier: usually, a value higher/lower than 1.5 x IQR
◼ Variance and standard deviation (sample: s, population: σ)
◼ Variance: (algebraic, scalable computation)
1 n 1 n 2 1 n 2
 [ xi − ( xi ) ]
n n
1 1
s = ( xi − x ) =  =  −  =  xi −  2
2 2 2 2 2
( x )
n − 1 i =1 n − 1 i =1 n i =1 N i =1
i
N i =1

◼ Standard deviation s (or σ) is the square root of variance s2 (or σ2)

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 14

 Properties of Normal Distribution Curve

◼ The normal (distribution) curve

◼ From μ–σ to μ+σ: contains about 68% of the

measurements (μ: mean, σ: standard deviation)

◼ From μ–2σ to μ+2σ: contains about 95% of it
◼ From μ–3σ to μ+3σ: contains about 99.7% of it

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 15

 Boxplot Analysis

◼ Five-number summary of a distribution:

Minimum, Q1, M, Q3, Maximum
◼ Boxplot
◼ Data is represented with a box
◼ The ends of the box are at the first and third
quartiles, i.e., the height of the box is IRQ
◼ The median is marked by a line within the box
◼ Whiskers: two lines outside the box extend to
Minimum and Maximum

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 16

Visualization of Data Dispersion: Boxplot Analysis

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 17

 Histogram Analysis

◼ Graph displays of basic statistical class descriptions

◼ Frequency histograms

◼ A univariate graphical method

◼ Consists of a set of rectangles that reflect the counts or
frequencies of the classes present in the given data

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 18

 Positively and Negatively Correlated Data

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 19

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 20
 Not Correlated Data

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 21

 Graphic Displays of Basic Statistical Descriptions

◼ Histogram
◼ Boxplot
◼ Quantile plot: each value xi is paired with fi indicating
that approximately 100 fi % of data are  xi
◼ Quantile-quantile (q-q) plot: graphs the quantiles of one
univariant distribution against the corresponding quantiles
of another
◼ Scatter plot: each pair of values is a pair of coordinates
and plotted as points in the plane
◼ Loess (local regression) curve: add a smooth curve to a
scatter plot to provide better perception of the pattern of
dependence
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 22
 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Descriptive data summarization
◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 23
 Data Cleaning

◼ Importance
◼ “Data cleaning is one of the three biggest problems
in data warehousing”—Ralph Kimball
◼ “Data cleaning is the number one problem in data
warehousing”—DCI survey
◼ Data cleaning tasks
◼ Fill in missing values
◼ Identify outliers and smooth out noisy data
◼ Correct inconsistent data
◼ Resolve redundancy caused by data integration

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 24

 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

◼ Missing data may need to be inferred.

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 25

 Customer Data
Name Age Sex Income Class
Mike 40 Male 150k Big spender
Jenny 20 Female ? Regular
…

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 26

 How to Handle Missing Data?
◼ Ignore the tuple: usually done when class label is missing (assuming
the tasks in classification—not effective when the percentage 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 (e.g., predict my age based on the info at my web
site?)
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 27
 Noisy Data
◼ Noise: random error or variance in a measured variable
◼ Incorrect attribute values may due to
◼ faulty data collection instruments

◼ data entry problems

◼ data transmission problems

◼ technology limitation

◼ inconsistency in naming convention

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 28

 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

◼ Clustering
◼ detect and remove outliers

◼ Combined computer and human inspection

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

deal with possible outliers)

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 29

 Simple Discretization Methods: 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 30

 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
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 31
 Regression

Y1
?

Humidity
Y1’ y=x+1

X1 x

Temperature

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 32

 Cluster Analysis

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 33

 Data Cleaning as a Process
◼ Data discrepancy detection
◼ Use metadata (e.g., domain, range, dependency, distribution)
(How many people are there in Nebraska?)
◼ 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)

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 34

 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 35

 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 (e.g., GPA in US
and China)
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 36
 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
◼ Careful integration of the data from multiple sources may
help reduce/avoid redundancies and inconsistencies and
improve mining speed and quality

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 37

 Correlation Analysis (Numerical Data)

◼ Correlation coefficient (also called Pearson’s product

moment coefficient)

rA, B =
 ( A − A)( B − B)  ( AB ) − n AB
=
(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(AB) 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; rA,B < 0: negatively correlated

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 38

 Correlation Analysis (Categorical Data)

◼ Χ2 (chi-square) test (Example: Grade and Sex)

(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
◼ 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 39

 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
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 40
 Chi Square Distribution

Degree of freedom = 1 (e.g., (r − 1)(c − 1))

For 0.001 significance, threshold = 10.828

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson's_chi-squared_test
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 41
 Data Transformation

◼ Smoothing: remove noise from data

◼ Aggregation: summarization
◼ Generalization: concept hierarchy climbing
◼ Normalization: scaled to fall within a small, specified
range
◼ min-max normalization
◼ z-score normalization
◼ normalization by decimal scaling
◼ Attribute/feature construction
◼ New attributes constructed from the given ones

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 42

 Data Transformation: 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 to [0.0,
73,600 − 12,000
1.0]. Then $73,000 is mapped to 98 ,000 − 12,000
(1.0 − 0) + 0 = 0.716

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

v − A
v' =
 A

73,600 − 54,000
◼ Ex. Let μ = 54,000, σ = 16,000. Then = 1.225
16,000
◼ Normalization by decimal scaling
v
v' = j Where j is the smallest integer such that Max(|ν’|) < 1
10
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 43
 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 44

 Data Reduction Strategies

◼ Why data reduction?

◼ A database/data warehouse may store terabytes of data

◼ Complex data analysis/mining may take a very long time to run

on the complete data set

◼ Data reduction
◼ Obtain a reduced representation of the data set that is much

smaller in volume but yet produce the same (or almost the
same) analytical results
◼ Data reduction strategies
◼ Data cube aggregation:

◼ Dimensionality reduction — e.g., remove unimportant attributes

◼ Data Compression

◼ Numerosity reduction — e.g., fit data into models

◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 45

 Data Cube Aggregation

◼ The lowest level of a data

cube (base cuboid)
◼ The aggregated data for
an individual entity of
interest
◼ Multiple levels of
aggregation in data cubes
◼ Further reduce the size
of data to deal with

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 46

 Attribute Subset Selection

◼ Feature selection (i.e., attribute subset selection):

◼ 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
◼ reduce # of patterns in the patterns, easier to

understand
◼ Heuristic methods (due to exponential # of choices):
◼ Step-wise forward selection

◼ Step-wise backward elimination

◼ Combining forward selection and backward elimination

◼ Decision-tree induction

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 47

 Example of Decision Tree Induction

Initial attribute set:

{A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6}

A4 ? Loan Approval
Example:
Salary, Credit
A1? A6?
Score, House,
Monthly payment,
Age
Class 1 Class 2 Class 1 Class 2

> Reduced attribute set: {A1, A4, A6}

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 48

 The weather data example.

Outlook Temperature Humidity Windy Play

Sunny Hot High False No
Sunny Hot High True No
Overcast Hot High False Yes
Rainy Mild High False Yes
Rainy Cool Normal False Yes
Rainy Cool Normal True No
Overcast Cool Normal True Yes
Sunny Mild High False No
Sunny Cool Normal False Yes
Rainy Mild Normal False Yes
Sunny Mild Normal True Yes
Overcast Mild High True Yes
Overcast Hot Normal False Yes
Rainy Mild High True No
 http://gautam.lis.illinois.edu/monkmiddleware/public/analytics/decisiontree.html

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 50

 Heuristic Feature Selection Methods
◼ There are 2d possible sub-features of d features
◼ Several heuristic feature selection methods:
◼ Best single features under the feature independence
assumption: choose by significance tests (how?)
◼ Best step-wise feature selection:

◼ The best single-feature is picked first

◼ Then next best feature condition to the first, ...

◼ Step-wise feature elimination:

◼ Repeatedly eliminate the worst feature

◼ Best combined feature selection and elimination

◼ Optimal branch and bound:

◼ Use feature elimination and backtracking

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 51

 Data Compression
◼ String compression
◼ There are extensive theories and well-tuned algorithms

(e.g., Huffman encoding algorithm)

◼ 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 52
 Data Compression

Original Data Compressed

Data
lossless

Original Data
Approximated

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 53

 Numerosity Reduction
◼ Reduce data volume by choosing alternative, smaller
forms of data representation
◼ Parametric methods
◼ Assume the data fits some model, estimate model

parameters, store only the parameters, and discard

the data (except possible outliers)

◼ Non-parametric methods
◼ Do not assume models

◼ Major families: histograms, clustering, sampling

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 54

 Data Reduction Method (1):
Regression Models

◼ Linear regression: Data are 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 55

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
 A R Example for Linear Regression

http://msenux.redwoods.edu/math/R/regression.php

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 57

 Data Reduction Method (2): Histograms

◼ Divide data into buckets and store 40

average (sum) for each bucket
35
◼ Partitioning rules:
30
◼ Equal-width: equal bucket range
◼ Equal-frequency (or equal- 25
depth) 20
15
10
5
0

100000
10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 58
 Data Reduction Method (3): 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”
◼ There are many choices of clustering definitions and clustering
algorithms
◼ Cluster analysis will be studied in depth in Chapter 7

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 59

 Data Reduction Method (4): Sampling
◼ Sampling: obtaining a small sample s to represent the
whole data set N
◼ Allow a mining algorithm to run in complexity that is
potentially sub-linear to the size of the data
◼ Choose a representative subset of the data
◼ Simple random sampling may have very poor
performance in the presence of skew
◼ Develop adaptive sampling methods
◼ Stratified sampling:

◼ Approximate the percentage of each class (or

subpopulation of interest) in the overall database

◼ Used in conjunction with skewed data

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 60

 Sampling: with or without Replacement

Raw Data
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 61
 Sampling: Cluster or Stratified Sampling

Raw Data Cluster/Stratified Sample

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 62

 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy generation
◼ Summary

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 63

 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
◼ Continuous — real numbers, e.g., integer or real numbers
◼ Discretization:
◼ Divide the range of a continuous attribute into intervals
◼ Some classification algorithms only accept categorical attributes.
◼ Reduce data size by discretization

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 64

 Discretization and Concept Hierarchy
◼ Discretization
◼ 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
◼ Supervised vs. unsupervised
◼ Split (top-down) vs. merge (bottom-up)
◼ Discretization can be performed recursively on an attribute
◼ 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 young, middle-aged, or senior)

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 65

 Discretization and Concept Hierarchy
Generation for Numeric Data
◼ Typical methods: All the methods can be applied recursively
◼ Binning
◼ Top-down split, unsupervised,
◼ Histogram analysis
◼ Top-down split, unsupervised
◼ Clustering analysis
◼ Either top-down split or bottom-up merge, unsupervised
◼ Entropy-based discretization: supervised, top-down split
◼ Interval merging by 2 Analysis: supervised, bottom-up merge

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 66

Concept Hierarchy Generation for Categorical 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
◼ 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}

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 67

 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

March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 68
 Chapter 2: Data Preprocessing

◼ Why preprocess the data?

◼ Data cleaning
◼ Data integration and transformation
◼ Data reduction
◼ Discretization and concept hierarchy
generation
◼ Summary
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 69
 Summary
◼ Data preparation or preprocessing is a big issue for both
data warehousing and data mining
◼ Descriptive data summarization is needed for quality data
preprocessing
◼ Data preparation includes
◼ Data cleaning and data integration
◼ Data reduction and feature selection
◼ Discretization
◼ A lot a methods have been developed but data
preprocessing still an active area of research
March 6, 2024 Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques 70