Survey on using constraints in data mining

This paper provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art on using constraints in knowledge discovery and data mining. The use of constraints in a data mining task requires specific definition and satisfaction tools during knowledge extraction. This survey proposes three groups of studies based on classification, clustering and pattern mining, whether the constraints are on the data, the models or the measures, respectively. We consider the distinctions between hard and soft constraint satisfaction, and between the knowledge extraction phases where constraints are considered. In addition to discussing how constraints can be used in data mining, we show how constraint-based languages can be used throughout the data mining process.