Process information maps categories

As discussed and illustrated in the introduction, data analysis can be conveniently viewed in terms of two categories of numeric-numeric manipulation, input and input-output, both of which transform numeric data into more valuable forms of numeric data. Input manipulations map from input data without knowledge of the output variables, generally to transform the input data to a more convenient representation that has unnecessary information removed while retaining the essential information. As presented in Section IV, input-output manipulations relate input variables to numeric output variables for the purpose of predictive modeling and may include an implicit or explicit input transformation step for reducing input dimensionality. When applied to data interpretation, the primary emphasis of input and input-output manipulation is on feature extraction, driving extracted features from the process data toward useful numeric information on plant behaviors. 

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