[...]... Appendix B—Software: This appendix provides a detailed explanation of the capabilities of the Traceis software, along with a discussion of how to access, run, and use the software It is assumed that the reader of the book has a basic understanding of the principles of data mining An overview has been given in a previously published book called Making Sense of Data: A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis... snapshot of some of the current uses of data mining in a variety of industries It also offers an overview of how data mining can be applied to topics where the primary focus is not tables of data, such as the processing of text documents and chemicals A number of case studies illustrating the use of data mining are outlined Appendix A—Matrices: This section provides an overview of matrices to use in... techniques such as data brushing, which is the ability to simultaneously highlight the same data in several data graphics to allow an open-ended exploration of the data set Making Sense of Data II By Glenn J Myatt and Wayne P Johnson Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc 19 20 CHAPTER 2 DATA VISUALIZATION In this chapter, a section on the principles of graphics design and graph construction is initially... J MYATT WAYNE P JOHNSON Jasper, Georgia November 2008 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 OVERVIEW A growing number of fields, in particular the fields of business and science, are turning to data mining to make sense of large volumes of data Financial institutions, manufacturing companies, and government agencies are just a few of the types of organizations using data mining Data mining is also being used to. .. technology standards for deployment of data mining applications can be found in Hornick et al (2006) CHAPTER 2 DATA VISUALIZATION 2.1 OVERVIEW Data visualization is critical to understanding the content of the data Data analysts use visualization to examine, scrutinize, and validate their analysis before they report their findings People making decisions use visualization to explore and question the findings... own data The Further Readings section of each chapter suggests material for further reading on topics related to the chapter Companion Website Accompanying this book is a website: http://www.makingsenseofdata.com/ containing additional resources to help in understanding how to implement the topics covered in this book Included on the website is a software download for the Traceis software PREFACE xiii... were used 1.3.3 Accessing Unstructured Data In many situations, the data to be used in the data mining project may not be represented as a table For example, the data to analyze may be a collection of documents or a sequence of page clicks on a particular web site Converting this type of data into a tabular format will be necessary in order to utilize many of the data mining approaches described later... also helpful to begin exploring the data to better understand its features Summary tables, matrices of different graphs, along with interactive techniques such as brushing, are critical data exploration tools These tools are described in Chapter 2 on data visualization Grouping the data is also helpful to understand the general categories of observations present in the set The visualization of groups... a central part of exploratory data analysis Data analysts use visualization to examine, scrutinize, and validate their analysis before they report their findings Decision makers use visualization to explore and question the findings before they develop action plans Each group of people using the data needs different graphics and visualization tools to do its work Producing high quality data graphics or... the principles of graphics design and visualization of data are outlined to most effectively see and communicate the contents of the data The methods outlined in Chapters 3 and 4 are described in such a way as to be used immediately in connection with any problem The software provides a complementary tool, since one of the best ways to understand how these methods works is to use them on data, especially . at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Myatt, Glenn J., 196 9- Making sense of data II: a practical guide to data visualization, advanced data mining methods, and applications/Glenn J. Myatt, . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" MAKING SENSE OF DATA II MAKING SENSE OF DATA II A Practical Guide to Data Visualization, Advanced Data Mining Methods, and Applications GLENN J. MYATT WAYNE P. JOHNSON Copyright. cm. Making sense of data 2 Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 97 8-0 -4 7 0-2 228 0-5 (pbk.) 1. Data mining. 2. Information visualization. I. Johnson, Wayne P. II. Title. III. Title: Making