Generalization-based data mining in object-oriented databases using an object cube model

Data mining is the discovery of knowledge and useful information from the large amounts of data stored in databases. With the increasing popularity of object-oriented database systems in advanced database applications, it is important to study the data mining methods for object-oriented databases because mining knowledge from such databases may improve understanding, organization, and utilization of the data stored there. In this paper, issues on generalization-based data mining in object-oriented databases are investigated in three aspects: (1) generalization of complex objects, (2) class-based generalization, and (3) extraction of different kinds of rules. An object cube model is proposed for class-based generalization, on-line analytical processing, and data mining. The study shows that (i) a set of sophisticated generalization operators can be constructed for generalization of complex data objects, (ii) a dimension-based class generalization mechanism can be developed for object cube construction, and (iii) sophisticated rule formation methods can be developed for extraction of different kinds of knowledge from data, including characteristic rules, discriminant rules, association rules, and classification rules. Furthermore, the application of such discovered knowledge may substantially enhance the power and flexibility of browsing databases, organizing databases and querying data and knowledge in object-oriented databases.