CIT- 652. DATA MINING.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR : Sheza Naeem

Lecture#6

Data Reduction :-

Data reduction techniques ensure the integrity of data while reducing the data. Data reduction is a process
that reduces the volume of original data and represents it in a much smaller volume. Data reduction
techniques are used to obtain a reduced representation of the dataset that is much smaller in volume by
maintaining the integrity of the original data. By reducing the data, the efficiency of the data mining
process is improved, which produces the same analytical results.

Data reduction does not affect the result obtained from data mining. That means the result obtained from
data mining before and after data reduction is the same or almost the same.
Data reduction aims to define it more compactly. When the data size is smaller, it is simpler to apply
sophisticated and computationally high-priced algorithms. The reduction of the data may be in terms of
the number of rows (records) or terms of the number of columns (dimensions)

Data Reduction Techniques:-

Here are the following techniques or methods of data reduction in data mining, such as:

1. Dimension reduction:
Whenever we come across any data which is weakly important, then we use the attribute required
for our analysis. It reduces data size as it eliminates outdated or redundant features.

 Step-wise Forward Selection –

The selection begins with an empty set of attributes later on we decide the best of the original
attributes on the set based on their relevance to other attributes. We know it as a p-value in
statistics.
Suppose there are the following attributes in the data set in which few attributes are redundant.
Initial attribute Set: {X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6}
Initial reduced attribute set: { }

Step-1: {X1}
Step-2: {X1, X2}
Step-3: {X1, X2, X5}
Final reduced attribute set: {X1, X2, X5}

 Step-wise Backward Selection –

This selection starts with a set of complete attributes in the original data and at each point, it
eliminates the worst remaining attribute in the set.
Suppose there are the following attributes in the data set in which few attributes are redundant.
Initial attribute Set: {X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6}
Initial reduced attribute set: {X1, X2, X3, X4, X5, X6 }

Step-1: {X1, X2, X3, X4, X5}

Step-2: {X1, X2, X3, X5}
Step-3: {X1, X2, X5}

Final reduced attribute set: {X1, X2, X5}

 Combination of forwarding and Backward Selection –

It allows us to remove the worst and select the best attributes, saving time and making the
process faster.

2. Data Cube Aggregation

This technique is used to aggregate data in a simpler form. Data Cube Aggregation is a multidimensional
aggregation that uses aggregation at various levels of a data cube to represent the original data set, thus
achieving data reduction.

For example, suppose you have the data of All Electronics sales per quarter for the year 2018 to the year
2022. If you want to get the annual sale per year, you just have to aggregate the sales per quarter for each
year. In this way, aggregation provides you with the required data, which is much smaller in size, and
thereby we achieve data reduction even without losing any data.

The data cube aggregation is a multidimensional aggregation that eases multidimensional analysis. The
data cube present precomputed and summarized data which eases the data mining into fast access.

3. Data Compression

Data compression employs modification, encoding, or converting the structure of data in a way that
consumes less space. Data compression involves building a compact representation of information by
removing redundancy and representing data in binary form. Data that can be restored successfully from its
compressed form is called Lossless compression. In contrast, the opposite where it is not possible to
restore the original form from the compressed form is Lossy compression. Dimensionality and numerosity
reduction method are also used for data compression.

i. Lossless Compression: Encoding techniques (Run Length Encoding) allow a simple and minimal data
size reduction. Lossless data compression uses algorithms to restore the precise original data from
the compressed data.
ii. Lossy Compression: In lossy-data compression, the decompressed data may differ from the original
data but are useful enough to retrieve information from them.

4. Discretization Operation

The data discretization technique is used to divide the attributes of the continuous nature into data with
intervals. We replace many constant values of the attributes with labels of small intervals. This means that
mining results are shown in a concise and easily understandable way.
i. Top-down discretization: If you first consider one or a couple of points (so-called breakpoints or
split points) to divide the whole set of attributes and repeat this method up to the end, then the
process is known as top-down discretization, also known as splitting.
ii. Bottom-up discretization: If you first consider all the constant values as split-points, some are
discarded through a combination of the neighborhood values in the interval. That process is called
bottom-up discretization.
5. Numerosity reduction:-

The numerosity reduction reduces the original data volume and represents it in a much smaller form. This
technique includes two types parametric and non-parametric numerosity reduction.
i. Parametric: Parametric numerosity reduction incorporates storing only data parameters instead of
the original data. One method of parametric numerosity reduction is the regression and log-linear
method.
o Regression and Log-Linear: Linear regression models a relationship between the two
attributes by modeling a linear equation to the data set. Suppose we need to model a linear
functionbetween two attributes.
y=wx+b
Here, y is the response attribute, and x is the predictor attribute. If we discuss in terms of
data mining, attribute x and attribute y are the numeric database attributes, whereas w and
b are regression coefficients.
Multiple linear regressions let the response variable y model linear function between two or
more predictor variables.
Log-linear model discovers the relation between two or more discrete attributes in the
 database. Suppose we have a set of tuples presented in n-dimensional space. Then the log-
linear model is used to study the probability of each tuple in a multidimensional space.
ii. Non-Parametric: A non-parametric numerosity reduction technique does not assume any model.
The non-Parametric technique results in a more uniform reduction, irrespective of data size, but it
may not achieve a high volume of data reduction like the parametric. There are at least four types
of Non-Parametric data reduction techniques, Histogram, Clustering, Sampling, Data Cube
Aggregation, and Data Compression.
o Histogram: A histogram is a graph that represents frequency distribution which describes how
often a value appears in the data. Histogram uses the binning method to represent an attribute's
data distribution. It uses a disjoint subset which we call bin or buckets.
A histogram can represent a dense, sparse, uniform, or skewed data. Instead of only one attribute,
the histogram can be implemented for multiple attributes. It can effectively represent up to five
attributes.
o Clustering: Clustering techniques groups similar objects from the data so that the objects in a
cluster are similar to each other, but they are dissimilar to objects in another cluster.
How much similar are the objects inside a cluster can be calculated using a distance function. More
is the similarity between the objects in a cluster closer they appear in the cluster.
The quality of the cluster depends on the diameter of the cluster, i.e., the max distance between
any two objects in the cluster.
The cluster representation replaces the original data. This technique is more effective if the present
data can be classified into a distinct clustered.
o Sampling: One of the methods used for data reduction is sampling, as it can reduce the large data
set into a much smaller data sample. Below we will discuss the different methods in which we can
sample a large data set D containing N tuples:
a. Simple random sample without replacement (SRSWOR) of size s: In this s, some tuples are
drawn from N tuples such that in the data set D (s<N). The probability of drawing any tuple
from the data set D is 1/N. This means all tuples have an equal probability of getting
sampled.
b. Simple random sample with replacement (SRSWR) of size s: It is similar to the SRSWOR,
but the tuple is drawn from data set D, is recorded, and then replaced into the data set D so
that it can be drawn again.
c. Cluster sample: The tuples in data set D are clustered into M mutually disjoint subsets. The

data reduction can be applied by implementing SRSWOR on these clusters. A simple random
sample of size s could be generated from these clusters where s<M
Benefits of Data Reduction

The main benefit of data reduction is simple: the more data you can fit into a terabyte of disk space, the
less capacity you will need to purchase. Here are some benefits of data reduction, such as:
o Data reduction can save energy.
o Data reduction can reduce your physical storage costs.
o And data reduction can decrease your data center track.
Data reduction greatly increases the efficiency of a storage system and directly impacts your total spending
on capacity.