Preprocessing

Data preprocessing describes any type of processing performed on raw data to prepare it for another processing procedure. Commonly used as a preliminary data mining practice, data preprocessing transforms the data into a format that will be more easily and effectively processed for the purpose of the user — for example, in a neural network. There are a number of different tools and methods used for preprocessing, including: sampling, which selects a representative subset from a large population of data; transformation, which manipulates raw data to produce a single input; denoising, which removes noise from data; normalization, which organizes data for more efficient access; and feature extraction, which pulls out specified data that is significant in some particular context.