Visual Identification of Inconsistency in Pattern

Abstract

The visual identification of inconsistencies in patterns is an area in computing that has been understudied. While pattern visualisation exposes the relationships among identified regularities, it is still very important to identify inconsistencies (irregularities) in identified patterns. The significance of identifying inconsistencies for example in the growth pattern of children of a particular age will enhance early intervention such as dietary modifications for stunted children. It is described in this chapter, the need to have a system that identifies inconsistencies in identified pattern of a dataset. Also, techniques that enable the visual identification of inconsistencies in patterns such as fault tolerance and colour coding are described. Two approaches are presented in this chapter for visualising inconsistencies in patterns namely; visualising inconsistencies in objects with many attribute values and visual comparison of an investigated dataset with a case control dataset. These approaches are associated with tools which were developed by the authors of this chapter: Firstly, ConTra which allows its users to mine and analyse the contradictions in attribute values whose data does not abide by the mutual exclusion rule of the dataset. Secondly, Datax which mines missing data; enables the visualisation of the missingness and the identification of the associated patterns. Finally, WellGrowth which explores Children’s growth dataset by comparing an investigated dataset (data obtained from a Primary Health Centre) with a case control dataset (data from the website of World Health Organisation). Instances of inconsistencies as discovered in the explored datasets are discussed.