Mining unexpected patterns using decision trees and interestingness measures: a case study of endometriosis

• Published in: Soft computing (Berlin, Germany) Vol. 20; no. 10; pp. 3991 - 4003
• Main Authors: Chang, Ming-Yang, Chiang, Rui-Dong, Wu, Shih-Jung, Chan, Chien-Hui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.10.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Algorithms; Artificial Intelligence; Closed loops; Computational Intelligence; Control; Data mining; Decision trees; Endometriosis; Engineering; Hypotheses; Infertility; Knowledge; Mathematical Logic and Foundations; Mechatronics; Medical research; Methodologies and Application; Patients; Pattern analysis; Robotics; Statistical methods; Subject specialists; Variance analysis; Domain-driven data mining; Treatment comparison; Unexpected patterns; Interestingness measures
• ISSN: 1432-7643; 1433-7479
• DOI: 10.1007/s00500-015-1735-0

Because clinical research is carried out in complex environments, prior domain knowledge, constraints, and expert knowledge can enhance the capabilities and performance of data mining. In this paper we propose an unexpected pattern mining model that uses decision trees to compare recovery rates of two different treatments, and to find patterns that contrast with the prior knowledge of domain users. In the proposed model we define interestingness measures to determine whether the patterns found are interesting to the domain. By applying the concept of domain-driven data mining, we repeatedly utilize decision trees and interestingness measures in a closed-loop, in-depth mining process to find unexpected and interesting patterns. We use retrospective data from transvaginal ultrasound-guided aspirations to show that the proposed model can successfully compare different treatments using a decision tree, which is a new usage of that tool. We believe that unexpected, interesting patterns may provide clinical researchers with different perspectives for future research.