CS 591.

03
Introduction to Data Mining
Instructor: Abdullah Mueen
LECTURE 2: DATA TYPES AND SIMILARITIES
Getting to Know Your Data

Data Objects and Attribute Types

Basic Statistical Descriptions of Data

Data Visualization

Measuring Data Similarity and Dissimilarity

Summary
 timeout

season
coach

game
score
team

ball

lost
pla

wi
n
y
Types of Data Sets
Record Document 1 3 0 5 0 2 6 0 2 0 2
◦ Relational records
◦ Data matrix, e.g., numerical matrix, crosstabs Document 2 0 7 0 2 1 0 0 3 0 0

◦ Document data: text documents: term-frequency vector

Document 3 0 1 0 0 1 2 2 0 3 0
◦ Transaction data

Graph and network

◦ World Wide Web
◦ Social or information networks TID Items
◦ Molecular Structures 1 Bread, Coke, Milk
Ordered 2 Beer, Bread
◦ Video data: sequence of images 3 Beer, Coke, Diaper, Milk
◦ Temporal data: time-series 4 Beer, Bread, Diaper, Milk
◦ Sequential Data: transaction sequences
5 Coke, Diaper, Milk
◦ Genetic sequence data

Spatial, image and multimedia:

◦ Spatial data: maps
◦ Image data:
◦ Video data:
Important Characteristics of Structured Data
Dimensionality
◦ Curse of dimensionality

Sparsity
◦ Only presence counts

Resolution

◦ Patterns depend on the scale

Distribution
◦ Centrality and dispersion
Data Objects
Data sets are made up of data objects.
A data object represents an entity.
Examples:
◦ sales database: customers, store items, sales
◦ medical database: patients, treatments
◦ university database: students, professors, courses
Also called samples , examples, instances, data points, objects, tuples.
Data objects are described by attributes.
Database rows -> data objects; columns ->attributes.
Attributes
Attribute (or dimensions, features, variables): a data field, representing a characteristic or
feature of a data object.
◦ E.g., customer _ID, name, address

Types:
◦ Nominal
◦ Binary
◦ Ordinal
◦ Numeric: quantitative
◦ Interval-scaled
◦ Ratio-scaled
Attribute Types
Nominal: categories, states, or “names of things”
◦ Hair_color = {auburn, black, blond, brown, grey, red, white}
◦ marital status, occupation, ID numbers, zip codes
Binary
◦ Nominal attribute with only 2 states (0 and 1)
◦ Symmetric binary: both outcomes equally important
◦ e.g., gender
◦ Asymmetric binary: outcomes not equally important.
◦ e.g., medical test (positive vs. negative)
◦ Convention: assign 1 to most important outcome (e.g., HIV positive)
Ordinal
◦ Values have a meaningful order (ranking) but magnitude between successive values is not
known.
◦ Size = {small, medium, large}, grades, army rankings
Numeric Attribute Types
Quantity (integer or real-valued)
Interval
◦ Measured on a scale of equal-sized units
◦ Values have order

◦ E.g., temperature in C˚or F˚, calendar dates

◦ No true zero-point

Ratio
◦ Inherent zero-point
◦ We can speak of values as being an order of magnitude larger than the unit of measurement (10 K˚ is twice as high as 5
K˚).

◦ e.g., temperature in Kelvin, length, counts, monetary quantities

Discrete vs. Continuous Attributes
Discrete Attribute
◦ Has only a finite or countably infinite set of values
◦ E.g., zip codes, profession, or the set of words in a collection of documents
◦ Sometimes, represented as integer variables
◦ Note: Binary attributes are a special case of discrete attributes
Continuous Attribute
◦ Has real numbers as attribute values
◦ E.g., temperature, height, or weight
◦ Practically, real values can only be measured and represented using a finite
number of digits
◦ Continuous attributes are typically represented as floating-point variables
Getting to Know Your Data
Data Objects and Attribute Types

Basic Statistical Descriptions of Data

Data Visualization

Measuring Data Similarity and Dissimilarity

Summary
Basic Statistical Descriptions of Data
Motivation
◦ To better understand the data: central tendency, variation and spread

Data dispersion characteristics

◦ median, max, min, quantiles, outliers, variance, etc.
Measuring the Central Tendency
1 n
x   xi
Mean (algebraic measure) (sample vs. population):
Note: n is sample size and N is population size.
n i 1
◦ Weighted arithmetic mean: n
  x
◦ Trimmed mean: chopping extreme values w x i i N
x i 1
n
Median:
◦ Middle value if odd number of values, or average of the middle two w
i 1
i

values otherwise
◦ Estimated by interpolation (for grouped data):
n / 2  ( freq ) l Median
median  L1  ( ) width interval

Mode
freq median
◦ Value that occurs most frequently in the data
◦ Unimodal, bimodal, trimodal
mean  mode  3  (mean  median)
◦ Empirical formula:
Symmetric vs. Skewed Data
Median, mean and mode of symmetric,
positively and negatively skewed data

positively skewed negatively skewed symmetric

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, median, Q3, max
◦ Boxplot: ends of the box are the quartiles; median is marked; add whiskers, and plot outliers individually
◦ Outlier: usually, a value higher/lower than 1.5 x IQR 1 n
1 n
       i  
2 2 2
2
( xi ) x
N i 1 N i 1
Variance and standard deviation (sample: s, population: σ)
1 n 1 n 2 1 n
◦ Variance: (algebraic, scalable computation) s 
2

n  1 i 1
( xi  x ) 2
 [ 
n  1 i 1
xi  ( 
n i 1
xi ]
) 2

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

Boxplot Analysis
Five-number summary of a distribution
◦ Minimum, Q1, Median, 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 IQR
◦ The median is marked by a line within the box
◦ Whiskers: two lines outside the box extended to Minimum and Maximum
◦ Outliers: points beyond a specified outlier threshold, plotted individually
Visualization of Data Dispersion: 3-D Boxplots
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
Graphic Displays of Basic Statistical Descriptions
Boxplot: graphic display of five-number summary

Histogram: x-axis are values, y-axis represents frequencies

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
 Histogram Analysis
Histogram: Graph display of tabulated frequencies,
shown as bars
40

It shows what proportion of cases fall into each of 35

30
several categories
25

Differs from a bar chart in that it is the area of the 20

bar that denotes the value, not the height as in bar 15

10
charts, a crucial distinction when the categories are
5
not of uniform width
0
10000 30000 50000 70000 90000
The categories are usually specified as non-
overlapping intervals of some variable. The
categories (bars) must be adjacent
Histograms Often Tell More than Boxplots
 The two histograms
shown in the left may
have the same boxplot
representation
 The same values for:
min, Q1, median, Q3,
max
 But they have rather
different data
distributions
Quantile Plot
Displays all of the data (allowing the user to assess both the overall behavior and
unusual occurrences)
Plots quantile information
◦ For a data xi data sorted in increasing order, fi indicates that approximately
100 fi% of the data are below or equal to the value xi
Q3

Q1
Quantile-Quantile (Q-Q) Plot
Graphs the quantiles of one univariate distribution against the corresponding quantiles
of another
View: Is there is a shift in going from one distribution to another?
Example shows unit price of items sold at Branch 1 vs. Branch 2 for each quantile. Unit
prices of items sold at Branch 1 tend to be lower than those at Branch 2.
Scatter plot
Provides a first look at bivariate data to see clusters of points, outliers, etc
Each pair of values is treated as a pair of coordinates and plotted as points in the
plane
Positively and Negatively Correlated Data

positively correlated negative correlated

Uncorrelated Data
Getting to Know Your Data
Data Objects and Attribute Types

Basic Statistical Descriptions of Data

Data Visualization

Measuring Data Similarity and Dissimilarity

Summary
Data Visualization
Why data visualization?
◦ Gain insight into an information space by mapping data onto graphical primitives
◦ Provide qualitative overview of large data sets
◦ Search for patterns, trends, structure, irregularities, relationships among data
◦ Help find interesting regions and suitable parameters for further quantitative analysis
◦ Provide a visual proof of computer representations derived
Categorization of visualization methods:
◦ Pixel-oriented visualization techniques
◦ Geometric projection visualization techniques
◦ Icon-based visualization techniques
◦ Hierarchical visualization techniques
◦ Visualizing complex data and relations
Pixel-Oriented Visualization Techniques
For a data set of m dimensions, create m windows on the screen, one for each
dimension
The m dimension values of a record are mapped to m pixels at the corresponding
positions in the windows. The colors of the pixels reflect the corresponding values

(a) Income (b) Credit Limit (c) transaction volume (d) age
28
Geometric Projection Visualization Techniques
Visualization of geometric transformations and projections of the data
Methods
◦ Direct visualization
◦ Scatterplot and scatterplot matrices
◦ Landscapes
◦ Projection pursuit technique: Help users find meaningful projections of
multidimensional data
◦ Prosection views
◦ Hyperslice
◦ Parallel coordinates
 Scatterplot Matrices
Matrix of scatterplots (x-y-diagrams) of the k-dim. data [total of (k2/2-k) scatterplots]
Used by permission of M. Ward, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Parallel Coordinates
n equidistant axes which are parallel to one of the screen axes and correspond to the attributes
The axes are scaled to the [minimum, maximum]: range of the corresponding attribute
Every data item corresponds to a polygonal line which intersects each of the axes at the point
which corresponds to the value for the attribute

• • •

Attr. 1 Attr. 2 Attr. 3 Attr. k

Parallel Coordinates of a Data Set
Hierarchical Visualization Techniques
Visualization of the data using a hierarchical partitioning into subspaces

Methods
◦ Dimensional Stacking
◦ Worlds-within-Worlds
◦ Tree-Map
◦ Cone Trees
◦ InfoCube
Dimensional Stacking
Partitioning of the n-dimensional attribute space in 2-D subspaces, which are
‘stacked’ into each other
Partitioning of the attribute value ranges into classes. The important attributes
should be used on the outer levels.
Adequate for data with ordinal attributes of low cardinality
But, difficult to display more than nine dimensions
Important to map dimensions appropriately
 Used by permission of M. Ward, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Dimensional Stacking

Visualization of oil mining data with longitude and latitude mapped to the
outer x-, y-axes and ore grade and depth mapped to the inner x-, y-axes
Getting to Know Your Data
Data Objects and Attribute Types

Basic Statistical Descriptions of Data

Data Visualization

Measuring Data Similarity and Dissimilarity

Summary
Similarity and Dissimilarity
Similarity
◦ Numerical measure of how alike two data objects are
◦ Value is higher when objects are more alike
◦ Often falls in the range [0,1]
Dissimilarity (e.g., distance)
◦ Numerical measure of how different two data objects are
◦ Lower when objects are more alike
◦ Minimum dissimilarity is often 0
◦ Upper limit varies
Proximity refers to a similarity or dissimilarity
Data Matrix and Dissimilarity Matrix
Data matrix  x11 ... x1f ... x1p 
◦ n data points with p dimensions  
 ... ... ... ... ... 
x ... xif ... xip 
 i1 
 ... ... ... ... ... 
x ... xnf ... xnp 
 n1 
Dissimilarity matrix
◦ n data points, but registers only the distance  0 
◦ A triangular matrix  d(2,1) 0 
 
 d(3,1 ) d ( 3, 2 ) 0 
 
 : : : 
d ( n,1) d ( n, 2 ) ... ... 0
Proximity Measure for Nominal
Attributes
Can take 2 or more states, e.g., red, yellow, blue, green (generalization of a binary attribute)

Method 1: Simple matching

◦ m: # of matches, p: total # of variables/features
p
d (i, j )  p m

Method 2: Use a large number of binary attributes

◦ creating a new binary attribute for each of the M nominal states
Proximity Measure for Binary Attributes
Object j

A contingency table for binary data

Object i

Distance measure for symmetric binary

variables:

Distance measure for asymmetric

binary variables:

Jaccard coefficient (similarity measure

for asymmetric binary variables):
Dissimilarity between Binary Variables
Example Name Gender Fever Cough Test-1 Test-2 Test-3 Test-4
Jack M Y N P N N N
Mary F Y N P N P N
Jim M Y P N N N N

◦ Gender is a symmetric attribute

◦ The remaining attributes are asymmetric binary
◦ Let the values Y and P be 1, and the value N 0
01
d ( jack , m ary)   0.33
2 01
11
d ( jack , jim )   0.67
111
1 2
d ( jim, m ary)   0.75
11 2
Standardizing Numeric Data
Z-score:
◦ X: raw score to be standardized, μ: mean of the population, σ: standard 
z  x
deviation
◦ the distance between the raw score and the population mean in units of
the standard deviation
◦ negative when the raw score is below the mean, “+” when above

An alternative way: Calculate the mean absolute deviation

sf  1
n (| x1 f  m f |  | x2 f  m f | ... | xnf  m f |)
where xif  m f
mf  1
n (x1 f  x2 f  ...  xnf )
.
zif  sf
◦ standardized measure (z-score):
◦ Using mean absolute deviation is more robust than using standard deviation
Example:
Data Matrix and Dissimilarity Matrix Data Matrix

point attribute1 attribute2

x1 1 2
x2 3 5
x3 2 0
x4 4 5

Dissimilarity Matrix
(with Euclidean Distance)

x1 x2 x3 x4
x1 0
x2 3.61 0
x3 2.24 5.1 0
x4 4.24 1 5.39 0
Distance on Numeric Data: Minkowski Distance
Minkowski distance: A popular distance measure

where i = (xi1, xi2, …, xip) and j = (xj1, xj2, …, xjp) are two p-dimensional data objects,
and h is the order (the distance so defined is also called L-h norm)
Properties
◦ d(i, j) > 0 if i ≠ j, and d(i, i) = 0 (Positive definiteness)
◦ d(i, j) = d(j, i) (Symmetry)
◦ d(i, j)  d(i, k) + d(k, j) (Triangle Inequality)
A distance that satisfies these properties is a metric
Special Cases of Minkowski Distance
h = 1: Manhattan (city block, L1 norm) distance
◦ E.g., the Hamming distance: the number of bits that are different between
two binary vectors

d (i, j) | x  x |  | x  x | ... | x  x |
i1 j1 i2 j2 ip jp
h = 2: (L2 norm) Euclidean distance

d (i, j)  (| x  x |2  | x  x |2 ... | x  x |2 )
i1 j1 i2 j 2 ip jp
h  . “supremum” (Lmax norm, L norm) distance.
◦ This is the maximum difference between any component (attribute) of the
vectors
 Example: Minkowski Distance
Euclidean (L2)
point attribute 1 attribute 2
x1 1 2 L2 x1 x2 x3 x4
x2 3 5 x1 0
x3 2 0 x2 3.61 0
x3 2.24 5.1 0
x4 4 5
x4 4.24 1 5.39 0

Manhattan (L1) Supremum

L x1 x2 x3 x4 L x1 x2 x3 x4
x1 0 x1 0
x2 5 0 x2 3 0
x3 3 6 0 x3 2 5 0
x4 6 1 7 0 x4 3 1 5 0

Dissimilarity Matrices
Ordinal Variables
An ordinal variable can be discrete or continuous
Order is important, e.g., rank
Can be treated like interval-scaled rif {1,..., M f }
◦ replace xif by their rank
◦ map the range of each variable onto [0, 1] by replacing i-th object in the f-th
variable by
rif 1
zif 
M f 1
◦ compute the dissimilarity using methods for interval-scaled variables
Attributes of Mixed Type
A database may contain all attribute types
◦ Nominal, symmetric binary, asymmetric binary, numeric, ordinal
One may use a weighted formula to combine their effects
 pf  1 ij( f ) dij( f )
d (i, j) 
 pf  1 ij( f )
◦ f is binary or nominal:
dij(f) = 0 if xif = xjf , or dij(f) = 1 otherwise

◦ f is numeric: use the normalized distance

◦ f is ordinal r 1
◦ Compute ranks rif and
zif 
if

◦ Treat zif as interval-scaled

M f 1
Cosine Similarity
A document can be represented by thousands of attributes, each recording the frequency of a particular word (such as keywords) or
phrase in the document.

Other vector objects: gene features in micro-arrays, …

Applications: information retrieval, biologic taxonomy, gene feature mapping, ...
Cosine measure: If d1 and d2 are two vectors (e.g., term-frequency vectors), then
cos(d1, d2) = (d1  d2) /||d1|| ||d2|| ,
where  indicates vector dot product, ||d||: the length of vector d
Example: Cosine Similarity

cos(d1, d2) = (d1  d2) /||d1|| ||d2|| ,

where  indicates vector dot product, ||d|: the length of vector d

Ex: Find the similarity between documents 1 and 2.

d1 = (5, 0, 3, 0, 2, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0)
d2 = (3, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1)

d1d2 = 5*3+0*0+3*2+0*0+2*1+0*1+0*1+2*1+0*0+0*1 = 25
||d1||= (5*5+0*0+3*3+0*0+2*2+0*0+0*0+2*2+0*0+0*0)0.5=(42)0.5 = 6.481
||d2||= (3*3+0*0+2*2+0*0+1*1+1*1+0*0+1*1+0*0+1*1)0.5=(17)0.5 = 4.12
cos(d1, d2 ) = 0.94
Summary
Data attribute types: nominal, binary, ordinal, interval-scaled, ratio-scaled
Many types of data sets, e.g., numerical, text, graph, Web, image.
Gain insight into the data by:
◦ Basic statistical data description: central tendency, dispersion, graphical
displays
◦ Data visualization: map data onto graphical primitives
◦ Measure data similarity
Above steps are the beginning of data preprocessing
Many methods have been developed but still an active area of research
References
W. Cleveland, Visualizing Data, Hobart Press, 1993
T. Dasu and T. Johnson. Exploratory Data Mining and Data Cleaning. John Wiley, 2003
U. Fayyad, G. Grinstein, and A. Wierse. Information Visualization in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Morgan
Kaufmann, 2001
L. Kaufman and P. J. Rousseeuw. Finding Groups in Data: an Introduction to Cluster Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, 1990.
H. V. Jagadish et al., Special Issue on Data Reduction Techniques. Bulletin of the Tech. Committee on Data Eng., 20(4), Dec.
1997
D. A. Keim. Information visualization and visual data mining, IEEE trans. on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 8(1), 2002
D. Pyle. Data Preparation for Data Mining. Morgan Kaufmann, 1999
S. Santini and R. Jain,” Similarity measures”, IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 21(9), 1999
E. R. Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed., Graphics Press, 2001
C. Yu et al., Visual data mining of multimedia data for social and behavioral studies, Information Visualization, 8(1), 2009