Continuize
==========

.. figure:: icons/continuize.png

Turns discrete attributes into continuous dummy variables.

Signals
-------

**Inputs**:

-  **Data**

   Input data set

**Outputs**:

-  **Data**

   Output data set

Description
-----------

The **Continuize** widget receives a data set in the input and outputs the
same data set in which the discrete attributes (including binary attributes)
are replaced with continuous ones.

.. figure:: images/Continuize-stamped.png

1. `Continuization methods <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_correction>`_, which define the treatment of multivalued discrete attributes. Say that we have a discrete attribute status with the values low, middle and high, listed in that order. Options for their transformation are:  

   - **Target or First value as base**: the attribute will be transformed into two continuous attributes, status=middle with values 0 or 1 signifying whether the original attribute had value middle on a particular example, and similarly, status=high. Hence, a three-valued attribute is transformed into two continuous attributes, corresponding to all except the first value of the attribute.
   - **Most frequent value as base**: similar to the above, except that the data is analyzed and the most frequent value is used as a base. So, if most examples have the value middle, the two newly constructed continuous attributes will be status=low and status=high.
   - **One attribute per value**: this would construct three continuous attributes out of a three-valued discrete one.
   - **Ignore multinominal attributes**: removes the multinominal attributes from the data.
   - **Treat as ordinal**: converts the attribute into a continuous attribute with values 0, 1, and 2.
   - **Divide by number of values**: same as above, except that the values are normalized into range 0-1. So, our case would give values 0, 0.5 and 1.

2. Define the treatment of continuous attributes. You will usually
   prefer the *Leave them as they are* option. The alternative is *Normalize by
   span*, which will subtract the lowest value found in the data and
   divide by the span, so all values will fit into [0, 1]. Finally,
   *Normalize by standard deviation* subtracts the average and divides by the
   deviation.
3. Define the treatment of class attributes. Besides leaving it as it
   is, there are also a couple of options available for
   multinominal attributes, except for those options which split the
   attribute into more than one attribute - this obviously cannot be
   supported since you cannot have more than one class attribute.
4. With *value range*, you can define the values of new attributes.
   In the above text, we supposed the range *from 0 to 1*. You can change
   it to *from -1 to 1*.
5. Produce a report. 
6. If *Apply automatically* is ticked, changes are committed automatically.
   Otherwise, you have to press *Apply* after each change.

Examples
--------

First, let's see what is the output of the **Continuize** widget. We feed the
original data (the *Heart disease* data set) into the :doc:`Data Table <../data/datatable>` and see how they look like. Then
we continuize the discrete values and observe them in another :doc:`Data
Table <../data/datatable>`.

.. figure:: images/Continuize-Example1.png 

In the second example, we show a typical use of this widget - in order to
properly plot the linear projection of the data, discrete attributes need to
be converted to continuous ones and that is why we put the data through the
**Continuize** widget before drawing it. The attribute "*chest pain*"
originally had four values and was transformed into three continuous
attributes; similar happened to gender, which was transformed into a
single attribute "*gender=female*". 

.. figure:: images/Continuize-Example2.png