Practical Applications of Data Mining

288 Chapter 7 Clustering

clustering patterns—namely, weight and threshold values (sometimes called

critical values).

7.4.4 Weights and Threshold Values

Weight is the preference of certain attributes of a database. It is assigned by

investigators and is usually defined by a value between zero and one [0–1]. A

value of 1 means investigators want the highest degree of consideration for

the attribute, while the zero value means the contribution of the attribute will

be ignored. Using weights, investigators can value the contribution of one

attribute more than others for more effective data analysis. However, weight-

ing may make clustering