Data Mining Task Primitives

A data mining task can be specified in the form of a data mining query,
which is input to the data mining system. A data mining query is defined
in terms of data mining task primitives. These primitives allow the user to
interactively communicate with the data mining system during discovery
to direct the mining process or examine the findings from different angles
or depths. The data mining primitives specify the following,

1. Set of task-relevant data to be mined.

2. Kind of knowledge to be mined.
3. Background knowledge to be used in the discovery process.
4. Interestingness measures and thresholds for pattern evaluation.
5. Representation for visualizing the discovered patterns.

A data mining query language can be designed to incorporate these

primitives, allowing users to interact with data mining systems flexibly.
Having a data mining query language provides a foundation on which
user-friendly graphical interfaces can be built.

Designing a comprehensive data mining language is challenging because

data mining covers a wide spectrum of tasks, from data characterization
to evolution analysis. Each task has different requirements. The design of
an effective data mining query language requires a deep understanding of
the power, limitation, and underlying mechanisms of the various kinds of
data mining tasks. This facilitates a data mining system's communication
with other information systems and integrates with the overall information
processing environment.

1. The set of task-relevant data to be mined

This specifies the portions of the database or the set of data in which the
user is interested. This includes the database attributes or data
warehouse dimensions of interest (the relevant attributes or dimensions).

In a relational database, the set of task-relevant data can be collected via

a relational query involving operations like selection, projection, join, and
aggregation.

The data collection process results in a new data relational called

the initial data relation. The initial data relation can be ordered or
grouped according to the conditions specified in the query. This data
retrieval can be thought of as a subtask of the data mining task.

This initial relation may or may not correspond to physical relation in the
database. Since virtual relations are called Views in the field of databases,
the set of task-relevant data for data mining is called a minable view.

2. The kind of knowledge to be mined

This specifies the data mining functions to be performed, such as

characterization, discrimination, association or correlation analysis,
classification, prediction, clustering, outlier analysis, or evolution analysis.

3. The background knowledge to be used in the discovery process

This knowledge about the domain to be mined is useful for guiding the
knowledge discovery process and evaluating the patterns found. Concept
hierarchies are a popular form of background knowledge, which allows
data to be mined at multiple levels of abstraction.

Concept hierarchy defines a sequence of mappings from low-level

concepts to higher-level, more general concepts.

o Rolling Up - Generalization of data: Allow to view data at more

meaningful and explicit abstractions and makes it easier to
understand. It compresses the data, and it would require fewer
input/output operations.
o Drilling Down - Specialization of data: Concept values replaced
by lower-level concepts. Based on different user viewpoints, there
may be more than one concept hierarchy for a given attribute or
dimension.

An example of a concept hierarchy for the attribute (or dimension) age is

shown below. User beliefs regarding relationships in the data are another
form of background knowledge.
4. The interestingness measures and thresholds for pattern
evaluation

Different kinds of knowledge may have different interesting measures.

They may be used to guide the mining process or, after discovery, to
evaluate the discovered patterns. For example, interesting measures for
association rules include support and confidence. Rules whose support
and confidence values are below user-specified thresholds are considered
uninteresting.

o Simplicity: A factor contributing to the interestingness of a pattern

is the pattern's overall simplicity for human comprehension. For
example, the more complex the structure of a rule is, the more
difficult it is to interpret, and hence, the less interesting it is likely to
be. Objective measures of pattern simplicity can be viewed as
functions of the pattern structure, defined in terms of the pattern
size in bits or the number of attributes or operators appearing in the
pattern.
o Certainty (Confidence): Each discovered pattern should have a
measure of certainty associated with it that assesses the validity or
"trustworthiness" of the pattern. A certainty measure for association
rules of the form "A =>B" where A and B are sets of items is
confidence. Confidence is a certainty measure. Given a set of task-
relevant data tuples, the confidence of "A => B" is defined as
Confidence (A=>B) = # tuples containing both A and B /# tuples
containing A
o Utility (Support): The potential usefulness of a pattern is a factor
defining its interestingness. It can be estimated by a utility function,
such as support. The support of an association pattern refers to the
percentage of task-relevant data tuples (or transactions) for which
the pattern is true.
Utility (support): usefulness of a pattern
Support (A=>B) = # tuples containing both A and B / total #of
tuples
o Novelty: Novel patterns are those that contribute new information
or increased performance to the given pattern set. For example -> A
data exception. Another strategy for detecting novelty is to remove
redundant patterns.
5. The expected representation for visualizing the discovered
patterns

This refers to the form in which discovered patterns are to be displayed,

which may include rules, tables, cross tabs, charts, graphs, decision trees,
cubes, or other visual representations.

Users must be able to specify the forms of presentation to be used for

displaying the discovered patterns. Some representation forms may be
better suited than others for particular kinds of knowledge.

For example, generalized relations and their corresponding cross tabs or

pie/bar charts are good for presenting characteristic descriptions, whereas
decision trees are common for classification.

Example of Data Mining Task Primitives

Suppose, as a marketing manager of AllElectronics, you would like to
classify customers based on their buying patterns. You are especially
interested in those customers whose salary is no less than $40,000 and
who have bought more than $1,000 worth of items, each of which is
priced at no less than $100.

In particular, you are interested in the customer's age, income, the types
of items purchased, the purchase location, and where the items were
made. You would like to view the resulting classification in the form of
rules. This data mining query is expressed in DMQL3 as follows, where
each line of the query has been enumerated to aid in our discussion.

1. use database AllElectronics_db

2. use hierarchy location_hierarchy for T.branch, age_hierarchy for
C.age
3. mine classification as promising_customers
4. in relevance to C.age, C.income, I.type, I.place_made, T.branch
5. from customer C, an item I, transaction T
6. where I.item_ID = T.item_ID and C.cust_ID = T.cust_ID and C.income
≥ 40,000 and I.price ≥ 100
7. group by T.cust_ID