Data Preparation for Data Mining
ACTION ITEMS
As Dorian Pyle reported for Morgan Kaufman Publishers recently, Data Preparation for Data Mining (ISBN 1-55860-529-0) addresses an issue unfortunately ignored by most authorities on data mining: data preparation. Thanks largely to its perceived difficulty, data preparation has traditionally taken a backseat to the more alluring question of how best to extract meaningful knowledge. But without adequate preparation of your data, the return on the resources invested in mining is certain to be disappointing.
Dorian Pyle corrects this imbalance. A twenty-five-year veteran of what has become the data mining industry, Pyle shares his own successful data preparation methodology, offering both a conceptual overview for managers and complete technical details for IT professionals. Apply his techniques and watch your mining efforts pay off-in the form of improved performance, reduced distortion, and more valuable results.
Contents
Preface -- Introduction -- Data Exploration As a Process -- The Nature of the World and Its Impact on Data Preparation -- Data Preparation as a Process -- Getting the Data: Basic Preparation -- Sampling, Variability and Confidence -- Handling Non-Numerical Variables -- Normalizing and Redistributing Variables -- Replacing Missing and Empty Values -- Series Variables -- Preparing the Data Set -- The Data Survey -- Using Prepared Data -- Using the Demonstration Code on the CD -- Further Reading -- Index
MORE INFORMATION
http://www.mkp.com/books_catalog/1-55860-529-0.asp
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
San Francisco, California