Applied Data Mining

CHAPTER 5

Classification

Two common data mining techniques for fi nding hidden patterns in

data are clustering and classifi cation analysis. Although classifi cation

and clustering are often mentioned in the same breath, they are different

analytical approaches. Imaging a database of customer records, where each

record represents a customer’s attributes. These can include identifi ers such

as name and address, demographic information such as gender and age,

and fi nancial attributes such as income and revenue spent. Clustering is an

automated process to group related records together. Related records are

grouped together on the basis of having similar ...