Data mining as generalization: A formal model

The model we present here formalizes the definition of Data Mining as the process of information generalization. In the model the Data Mining algorithms are defined as generalization operators. We show that only three generalizations operators: classification operator, clustering operator, and association operator are needed to express all Data Mining algorithms for classification, clustering, and association, respectively. The framework of the model allows to describe formally the hybrid systems; combination of classifiers into multi-classifiers, and combination of clustering with classification. We use our framework to show that classification, clustering and association analysis fall into three different generalization categories.