Data Mining Techniques (DMT)
By Kushal Anjaria
Session-1 (Lecture note)
Nowadays, we are witnessing the enormous growth of data
from terabytes to petabytes. For data, we have multiple data
collection tools and sources. The device includes various types
of disk, servers, hardware, and processing units. The sources
can be classified into three categories
1. Business: transactions stocks Web and e-commerce
2. Science: Remote Sensing bioinformatics and
simulations
3. Society: News digital camera social networking sites
and so on
“Real drowning in data but starving for knowledge.”- Prof.
Pabitra Mitra. In this situation, data mining comes into the
picture
Definition of data mining: Extraction of interesting,
nontrivial, implicit, previously unknown, and the potentially
useful pattern of knowledge obtained from a vast amount of
data is known as data mining
The alternative name of data mining is Knowledge Discovery
from Data (KDD). While doing data mining, one should be
careful as one has to know what data mining is. For example,
a simple search in the search engine or query in the database is
not a data mining procedure.
Normal Data Analytics procedure will not be able to handle the
following:
• Data Stream (from the sensor), time-series data,
temporal data, sequential data,
• graphs, graphical data, multi-linked data, social
network data
• Heterogeneous database and legacy databases,
• Multimedia, large text, and web data
• Simulation and forecasting data
Procedure for knowledge discovery from data
Fig-1: The KDD Process
• In this diagram, the entire KDD process is described.
• From the vast amount of data, it is crucial to search for
attributes that fulfill our requirements. This process is
known as the selection process.
• Once the data is selected, we check the data to verify
whether any data point is missing or not. The task of
scanning the data is known as data pre-processing. In the
pre-processing stage, we may also fill the data points using
statistical functions.
• In the transformation phase, we combine our data into
meaningful repositories. We create a data warehouse where
relational databases may be given some formal meanings
and interpretations in the transformation phase.
• In the data mining phase, we apply mathematical models
and data mining algorithms to transform data. This stage
helps us in identifying underlying patterns in the data. In
the data mining phase, we use various statistical analysis
and learning algorithms.
• The final stage of the KDD process is interpretation and
evaluation. In this phase, we convert the pattern obtained
in the data mining phase into a human-understandable
form. Proper data interpretation and visualization only
leads to knowledge generation.
• The entire KDD process is an iterative process that means
once knowledge is generated, one can again go back to the
data selection and pre-processing stage.
We will start our discussion on data mining by understanding
the meaning of data.
In this course, we consider data in tabular form. Suppose a bank
has provided us with the historical past data. From the patterns
available in the data, we intend to evaluate new loan
applications. We aim to identify whether the new applicant is
a fraud or legit.
Fig-2: Data Objects, Attributes, Vectors and dimensions
The data will have specific attributes and objects. In the above
example, the table columns are the attributes, and rows of the
table are records. In data mining literature, attributes or
columns are known as features, variables, or inputs.
One important thing to be noted is that in this particular
representation if we examine a row, we can think of each row
as a vector whose components are these individual attribute
values. These vectors are also sometimes known as the object
vector or the feature vector. Mathematically, we know that
each vector will have a dimension associated with it. The
number of attributes determines the dimension of the vectors
in it. In the present example, we have five attributes, so it is a
five-dimensional vector. In data mining, each vector is
considered as a point in the coordinate system. For the present
example, ten objects can be represented as data points in the
five-dimensional coordinate system.
Furthermore, a bank may have a collection of one lakh loan
applications over the past year. These loans can be thought of
as one lakh points in a five-dimensional coordinate system.
And once you do this plotting exercise, it helps you visualize
the nature of the data.
There are four types of attributes used in the data mining
process
1. Nominal attributes: e.g., ID numbers, eye color, zip
codes, etc.
The nominal attributes are just symbols. For example, the ID
number of a bank account is only a number; it has no other
meaning. Similarly, eye color: black or white or blue, zip code
the pin code of a place. So, these are just numbers or values or
symbols. These attributes are nominal attributes that act as
identifiers. Why are these only symbols? Because
suppose a person has a bank account number say 1001, and
another person has a bank account number say 1002, then you
cannot say that the person with 1002 is greater than the person
with 1001. You cannot compare these values. They are just
symbolic values. Consider another example: Kushal Anjaria
and another person’s name is to say something else, say Ram
Kumar. So, it does not tell us about anything more besides our
identity.
2. Ordinal attributes: e.g., ranking, grades, weights,
measurements
The ordinal values can be compared and measured. For
example, you are rating a movie or potato chips, for instance,
on a scale of 1 to 10, how good it is or how bad it is.
3. Interval attributes: e.g., date, temperature range
The value of interval attributes represents some interval space.
E.g., a date. The calendar date tells you that whether another
date, say the date of a loan application, falls in some time
interval or not. From the interval attribute values, you can say
that one belongs to this interval one does not belong to this
interval.
4. Ratio attributes: e.g., time, the temperature where
you can change the unit, and ratio can be obtained.
Properties of the attributes:
The four types of attributes described above depend upon
which of the following properties it possesses:
1. Distinctness:
2. Order
3. Addition or subtraction
4. Multiplication or division
Nominal attribute: distinctness
Ordinal attribute: distinctness and order
Interval attribute: distinctness, order, and addition
Ratio attribute: All the four properties above
Each data mining algorithm is redefined based on which
attributes we use and which property the attribute possesses.
The attribute types and operations are summarized in the
figure-3
In data mining, whatever operations you do has to be
compatible with the data type.
In data mining, the attribute can be represented as the discrete
or continuous attribute:
Discrete attribute:
• Has finite or countably infinite set of values
• Examples: zip code, set of words in the documents,
counting of any entity, number of accounts in the
bank, number of products in the warehouse
• Often represented as integer values
• Please note that binary values of any attribute can be
the particular case of the discrete attributes
Continuous attributes:
• Has real numbers as attribute values
• For example, temperature, height, weight
• Practically real numbers are represented using a
finite number of digits
• Continuous variables are represented as floating-
point variables
Fig-3 Attribute types and operation: explanation with
example:
Before going for data transformation, it is crucial to check the
quality of data.
The data can be considered of bad quality if
• Some values of the attributes are missing
• If the data domain is not satisfied
• Incorrect data is inserted
• Duplication or redundancy of data exists
• If data has some noise or distortion
• Data with outliers (e.g., % data with more than 100%
values. In decimal, missing the. etc.)
Data pre-processing increases the value of the data. Moreover,
it also decreases the computational load.
Data pre-processing tasks can be completed in the following
way:
1. Aggregation: Aggregation means sometimes you
consider a bunch of data together. After that, the
cumulative information of all these data is used.
2. Sampling: In the sampling technique, only a few
representative data are kept, and the rest is thrown away.
The idea is that only the sample is enough for the
processing.
3. Dimensionality reduction: We pick only the required
characteristics of the data. For example, if you go to a
doctor with lots of symptoms and lots of measurements,
the doctor would not look at all of them. The doctor will
select a few of them and complete the diagnosis.
4. Discretization and binarization: Sometimes, we have to
convert data in the discrete form or binary form from the
continuous data.