Data Mining, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 7

Data Transformations

In Chapter 6 we examined a vast array of machine learning methods: decision trees, classification and association rules, linear models, instance-based schemes, numeric prediction techniques, Bayesian networks, clustering algorithms, and semisupervised and multi-instance learning. All are sound, robust techniques that are eminently applicable to practical data mining problems.

But successful data mining involves far more than selecting a learning algorithm and running it over your data. For one thing, many learning schemes have various parameters, and suitable values must be chosen for these. In most cases, results can be improved markedly by a suitable choice of parameter values, and the appropriate choice depends ...