Data reduction 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 Strategies for data reduction include the following: 1. Data cube aggregation, where aggregation operations are applied to the data in the construction of a data cube. 2. Attribute subset selection, where irrelevant, weakly relevant, or redundant attributes or dimensions may be detected and removed. 3. Dimensionality reduction, where encoding mechanisms are used to reduce the data set size. 4. Numerosity reduction, where the data are replaced or estimated by alternative, smaller data representations such as parametric models (which need store only the model parameters instead of the actual data) or nonparametric methods such as clustering, sampling, and the use of histograms. 5. Discretization and concept hierarchy generation, where raw data values for attributes are replaced by ranges or higher conceptual levels. Data discretization is a form of numerosity reduction that is very useful for the automatic generation of concept hierarchies 2.5.1 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 Further reduce the size of data to deal with Use the smallest representation which is enough to solve the task

Multiple levels of aggregation in data cubes Reference appropriate levels

Queries regarding aggregated information should be answered using data cube, when possible Example These data consist of the AllElectronics sales per quarter, for the years 2002 to 2004. We are interested in the annual sales (total per year), rather than the total per quarter Thus the data can be aggregated so that the resulting data summarize the total sales per year instead of per quarter.

Data cubes store multidimensional aggregated information. Figure 2.14 shows a data cube for multidimensional analysis of sales data with respect to annual sales per item type for each AllElectronics branch. Each cell holds an aggregate data value, corresponding to the data point in multidimensional space.

2.5.2 Attribute Subset Selection

Data sets for analysis may contain hundreds of attributes, many of which may be irrelevant to the mining task or redundant. 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

The best (and worst) attributes are typically determined using tests of statistical significance, which assume that the attributes are independent of one another. Many other attribute evaluation measures can be used, such as the information gain measure used in building decision trees for classification

Heuristic methods (due to exponential # of choices):

Decision-tree induction 1. Stepwise forward selection: The procedure starts with an empty set of attributes as the reduced set. The best of the original attributes is determined and added to the reduced set. At each subsequent iteration or step, the best of the remaining original attributes is added to the set. 2. Stepwise backward elimination: The procedure starts with the full set of attributes. At each step, it removes the worst attribute remaining in the set. 3. Combination of forward selection and backward elimination: The stepwise forward selection and backward elimination methods can be combined so that, at each step, the procedure selects the best attribute and removes the worst from among the remaining attributes. 4. Decision tree induction: Decision tree algorithms, such as ID3, C4.5, and CART, were originally intended for classification. Decision tree induction constructs a flow chart like structure where each internal (nonleaf) node denotes a test on an attribute, each branch corresponds to an outcome of the test, and each external (leaf) node denotes a class prediction. At each node, the algorithm chooses the best attribute to partition the data into individual classes.

Step-wise forward selection Step-wise backward elimination Combining forward selection and backward elimination

2.5.3 Dimensionality Reduction In dimensionality reduction, data encoding or transformations are applied so as to obtain a reduced or compressed representation of the original data. If the original data can be reconstructed from the compressed data without lossless. If, instead, we can reconstruct only an approximation of the original data, then the data reduction is called lossy. Wavelet Transforms The discrete wavelet transform(DWT) is a linear signal processing technique that, when applied to a data vector X, transforms it to a numerically different vector, X0, of wavelet coefficients. The two vectors are of the same length. When applying this technique to data reduction, we consider each tuple as an n-dimensional data vector, that is, X = (x1;x2; : : : ;xn), depicting n measurements made on the tuple from n database attributes The DWT is closely related to the discrete Fourier transform(DFT), a signal processing technique involving sines and cosines. Figure 2.16 shows some wavelet families. Popular wavelet transforms include the Haar-2, Daubechies-4, and Daubechies-6 transforms. any loss of information, the data reduction is called

Method: 1. Length, L, must be an integer power of 2 (padding with 0s, when necessary) 2. Each transform has 2 functions: smoothing, difference 3. Applies to pairs of data, resulting in two set of data of length L/2 4. Applies length two functions recursively, until reaches the desired

Principal Components Analysis Given N data vectors from n-dimensions, find k n Steps 1. Normalize input data: Each attribute falls within the same range orthogonal vectors (principal components) that can be best used to represent data

2. Compute

orthonormal

(unit)

vectors,

i.e.,

principal

components

3. Each input data (vector) is a linear combination of the k

principal component vectors 4. The principal components are sorted in order of decreasing significance or strength 5. Since the components are sorted, the size of the data can be reduced by eliminating the weak components, i.e., those with low variance. components, it is (i.e., using the strongest principal possible to reconstruct a good

approximation of the original data Works for numeric data only Used when the number of dimensions is large

X2 Y2 Y1

X1

PCA

is

computationally attributes,

inexpensive, and can handle

can

be

applied data

to

ordered skewed

and

unordered

sparse

and

data.

Multidimensional data of more than two dimensions can be handled by reducing the problem to two dimensions.