IAE Academy

Data transformation formulas

Data types and data transformation: normalisation, discretisation, sampling and compression. 14 formulas for GATE DA Database Management and Warehousing, each with when to use it. Each is explained in the topic notes.

All 14 Data transformation formulas

MIN-MAX NORMALISATION TO [NEW_MIN, NEW_MAX]

Linear map of the observed range onto the target range; for [0,1] it reduces to (v - min)/(max - min). Preserves the shape of the distribution and the order of values. Undefined when max = min (all values equal).

Z-SCORE NORMALISATION

Result has mean 0 and standard deviation 1 (under the same convention for sigma). Convention: use the population standard deviation (divide by n) unless the question says sample (divide by n - 1). Not bounded to a fixed range; undefined when sigma = 0. A variant divides by the mean absolute deviation s = (1/n) times the sum of |v - mean| instead of sigma; it is less affected by outliers because deviations are not squared.

DECIMAL SCALING

Moves the decimal point; j is fixed by the value of largest absolute magnitude. Result lies strictly inside (-1, 1). Examples: max|v| = 986 gives j = 3; max|v| = 1000 gives j = 4.

EQUAL-WIDTH BINNING

Bins have the same width and usually unequal counts. Convention here: left-closed, right-open, with the last bin closed so the maximum belongs to it.

EQUAL-FREQUENCY (EQUAL-DEPTH) BINNING

Sort the data and put n/k consecutive values in each bin; widths differ. If k does not divide n, bin sizes are floor(n/k) or ceil(n/k) and the question must say which bins take the extra values. Tied values may need to share a bin.

ENTROPY-BASED (SUPERVISED) SPLIT

D_1 and D_2 are the tuples with attribute value at most, and above, the candidate split point T; p_i is the fraction of a set in class i. Choose the T that minimises Info_T(D), which is the same as maximising the information gain Entropy(D) - Info_T(D). Apply recursively to each part until a stopping rule is met.

INCLUSION PROBABILITY, SRSWOR

Sample of n distinct tuples from N, all subsets equally likely.

INCLUSION PROBABILITY, SRSWR

n independent draws, each tuple chosen with probability 1/N per draw; N^n ordered outcomes.

EXPECTED NUMBER OF DISTINCT TUPLES, SRSWR

By linearity of expectation over the N tuples. The limit is the bootstrap fact: a with-replacement sample of size N contains about 63.2% of the distinct tuples, and about 36.8% never appear.

PROPORTIONAL ALLOCATION IN STRATIFIED SAMPLING

Stratum h of size N_h receives a share of the total sample n in proportion to its size; round so that the n_h sum to n.

SYSTEMATIC SAMPLING

When N = nk exactly, every tuple has inclusion probability 1/k = n/N, but only k distinct samples are possible.

COMPRESSION RATIO

A ratio above 1 means the data shrank. Space saving = 1 - compressed/original.

FIXED-LENGTH CODE SIZE

For an alphabet of m >= 2 distinct symbols. A Huffman code never needs more bits per symbol on average than this, and needs fewer for some unequal frequency distributions (not all: probabilities 0.3, 0.3, 0.2, 0.2 give Huffman lengths 2, 2, 2, 2).

AVERAGE CODE LENGTH AND THE ENTROPY BOUND

p_i is the probability (relative frequency) of symbol i and l_i its code length in bits. No lossless symbol-by-symbol prefix code averages below H; Huffman's code is optimal among them and reaches H exactly when every p_i is a power of 1/2.

Where this was asked: 2024 (1). See the 1 previous-year question on Data transformation. This shows what was asked, not what will be asked.