Difference Between Data Mining and Query Tools

Data Mining vs Query Tools

Query Tools are tools that help analyze the data in a database. They provide query building, query
editing, searching, finding, reporting and summarizing functionalities. On the other hand, Data mining is a
field in computer science, which deals with the extraction of previously unknown and interesting
information from raw data. Data used as the input for the Data mining process usually is stored in
databases. Users who are inclined toward statistics use Data Mining. They utilize statistical models to
look for hidden patterns in data. Data miners are interested in finding useful relationships between
different data elements, which is ultimately profitable for businesses.

Data mining

Data mining is also known as Knowledge Discovery in Data (KDD). As mentioned above, it is a field of
computer science, which deals with the extraction of previously unknown and interesting information from
raw data. Due to the exponential growth of data, especially in areas such as business, data mining has
become very important tool to convert this large wealth of data in to business intelligence, as manual
extraction of patterns has become seemingly impossible in the past few decades. For example, it is
currently been used for various applications such as social network analysis, fraud detection and
marketing. Data mining usually deals with following four tasks: clustering, classification, regression, and
association. Clustering is identifying similar groups from unstructured data. Classification is learning rules
that can be applied to new data and will typically include following steps: preprocessing of data, designing
modeling, learning/feature selection and Evaluation/validation. Regression is finding functions with
minimal error to model data. And association is looking for relationships between variables. Data mining
is usually used to answer questions like what are the main products that might help to obtain high profit
next year in Wal-Mart?

Query Tools

Query Tools are tools that help to analyze the data in a database. Usually these query tools have a GUI
front end with convenient ways to input queries as a set of attributes. Once these inputs are provided the
tool generates actual queries made up of the underlying query language used by the database. SQL, T-
SQL and PL/SQL are examples of query languages used in many popular databases today. Then, these
generated queries are executed against the databases and the results of the queries are presented or
reported to the user in an organized and clear manner. Typically, the user does not need to know a
database-specific query language to use a Query tool. Key features of Query tools are integrated query
builder and editor, summery reports and figures, import and export features and advanced find/search
capabilities.

What is the difference between Data mining and Query Tools?

Query tools can be used to easily build and input queries to databases. Query tools make it very easy to
build queries without even having to learn a database-specific query language. On the other hand, Data
Mining is a technique or a concept in computer science, which deals with extracting useful and previously
unknown information from raw data. Most of the times, these raw data are stored in very large databases.
Therefore Data miners can use the existing functionalities of Query Tools to preprocess raw data before
the Data mining process. However, the main difference between Data mining techniques and using Query
tools is that, in order to use Query tools the users need to know exactly what they are looking for, while
data mining is used mostly when the user has a vague idea about what they are looking for.
Data Mining and Machine Learning
 Data Mining: Process of discovering patterns in data


 Patterns discovered must be meaningful in that they

lead to some advantage, usually economic
 KDD and Data Mining
 Expert
 systems
 Statistics
 Machine
 learning
 KDD
 Database
 Visualization
 Figure 1.1 Data mining is a multi-disciplinary field.

Data Mining vs. Query Tools

 SQL: When you know exactly what you are looking for


 Data Mining: When you only vaguely know what you

are looking for

Data Mining Techniques

 Not so much a single technique


 More the idea that there is more knowledge hidden in

the data than shows itself on the surface
Data Mining Techniques
 Any technique that helps to extract more out of data is
useful

o Query tools
o Statistical techniques
o Visualization
o On-line analytical processing (OLAP)
o Case-based learning (k-nearest neighbor)

Data Mining Techniques

 Decision trees
 Association rules
 Neural networks
 Genetic algorithms

 Machine Learning and the Methodology

of Science
 Analysis
 Observation
 Prediction
 Theory
 Empirical cycle of scientific research

 Machine Learning...
 Analysis
 Limited number of observation
 Theory � All swans are white�
 Reality: Infinite number of swans
 Theory formation

 Machine Learning...
 Prediction
 Single observation
 Theory � All swans are white�
 Theory falsification
 Reality: Infinite number of swans
There are various steps that are involved in mining data as shown in the
picture.

1. Data Integration: First of all the data are collected and integrated
from all the different sources.
2. Data Selection: We may not all the data we have collected in the
first step. So in this step we select only those data which we think
useful for data mining.
3. Data Cleaning: The data we have collected are not clean and may
contain errors, missing values, noisy or inconsistent data. So we need
to apply different techniques to get rid of such anomalies.
4. Data Transformation: The data even after cleaning are not ready
for mining as we need to transform them into forms appropriate for
mining. The techniques used to accomplish this are smoothing,
aggregation, normalization etc.
5. Data Mining: Now we are ready to apply data mining techniques on
the data to discover the interesting patterns. Techniques like
clustering and association analysis are among the many different
techniques used for data mining.
6. Pattern Evaluation and Knowledge Presentation: This step
involves visualization, transformation, removing redundant patterns etc from
the patterns we generated.
7. Decisions / Use of Discovered Knowledge: This step helps user to make
use of the knowledge acquired to take better decisions.
 Data Mining: Data cube computation and data generalization - Presentation Transcript

1. Data Cube Computation and Data Generalization

2. What is Data generalization?
Data generalization is a process that abstracts a large set of task-relevant data in a database from a relatively low
conceptual level to higher conceptual levels.
3. What are efficient methods for Data Cube Computation?
Different Data cube materialization include
Full Cube
Iceberg Cube
Closed Cube
Shell Cube
4. General Strategies for Cube Computation
1: Sorting, hashing, and grouping.2: Simultaneous aggregation and caching intermediate results.3: Aggregation from
the smallest child, when there exist multiple child cuboids.4: The Apriori pruning method can be explored to compute
iceberg cubes efficiently
5. What is Apriori Property?
The Apriori property, in the context of data cubes, states as follows: If a given cell does not satisfy minimum support,
then no descendant (i.e., more specialized or detailed version) of the cell will satisfy minimum support either. This
property can be used to substantially reduce the computation of iceberg cubes.
6. The Full Cube
The Multi way Array Aggregation (or simply Multi Way) method computes a full data cube by using a multidimensional
array as its basic data structure
Partition the array into chunks
Compute aggregates by visiting (i.e., accessing the values at) cube cells
7. BUC: Computing Iceberg Cubes from the Apex Cuboid’s Downward
BUC stands for “Bottom-Up Construction" , BUC is an algorithm for the computation of sparse and iceberg cubes.
Unlike Multi Way, BUC constructs the cube from the apex cuboids' toward the base cuboids'. This
allows BUC to share data partitioning costs. This order of processing also allows BUC to prune during construction,
using the Apriori property. (for algorithm refer wiki)
8. Development of Data Cube and OLAP Technology
Discovery-Driven Exploration of Data Cubes Tools need to be developed to assist users in intelligently exploring the
huge aggregated space of a data cube. Discovery-driven exploration is such a cube exploration approach.
Complex Aggregation at Multiple Granularity: Multi feature Cubes Data cubes facilitate the answering of data mining
queries as they allow the computation of aggregate data at multiple levels of granularity
9. Constrained Gradient Analysis in Data Cubes
Constrained multidimensional gradient analysis reduces the search space and derives interesting results. It
incorporates the following types of constraints:
Significance constraint
Probe constraint
Gradient constraint
10. Alternative Method for Data Generalization
Attribute-Oriented Induction for Data CharacterizationThe attribute-oriented induction approach is basically a query-
oriented, generalization-based, on-line data analysis technique The general idea of attribute-oriented induction is to
first collect the task-relevant data using a database query and then perform generalization based on the examination
of the number of distinct values of each attribute in the relevant set of data
11. Cont..
Attribute generalization is based on the following rule: If there is a large set of distinct values for an attribute in the
initial working relation, and there exists a set of generalization operators on the attribute, then a generalization
operator should be selected and applied to the attribute.
12. Different ways to control a generalization process
The control of how high an attribute should be generalized is typically quite subjective. The control of this process is
called attribute generalization control.
Attribute generalization threshold control
Generalized relation threshold control
13. Mining Classes
Data collection
Dimension relevance analysis
Synchronous generalization
Presentation of the derived comparison
14. Visit more self help tutorials
Pick a tutorial of your choice and browse through it at your own pace.
The tutorials section is free, self-guiding and will not involve any additional support.
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