How many types of anomalies are there?

This article discusses the different types of anomalies that Auto Insights detects. Auto Insights defines an anomaly as “a value that sits outside the expected range.” But what does that actually mean?

As you upload data, Auto Insights uses a number of different algorithms (like ARIMA, S-ARMIA and others) to scan your data to find patterns and relationships between segments and measures and starts to learn about your data.

How many types of anomalies are there?

Auto Insights needs at least seven months of data to find anomalies.

It also identifies the historic pattern of your data. For example, your dataset includes a field named Revenue. Auto Insights will identify if Revenue has increased or decreased over time. It uses this information for two purposes:

1. To provide an overview of Revenue’s performance in Discover

How many types of anomalies are there?

2. To identify if the change between this period and the last period is in line with past performance, or if the change was unexpected.

Let's Explore Some Examples

1. Anomalies with more than 12 months of data

How many types of anomalies are there?

In this example, we see that revenue for Paper has decreased from Nov-Dec 2017 by -44% as well as in Nov-Dec 2018 by -11%, but has increased in Nov-Dec 2019 by 14%.

Auto Insights has identified that revenue for paper had experienced anomalous behavior between the latest period.

2. Anomalies with less than 12 months of data

How many types of anomalies are there?

In this example, we can see that the dataset only has 9 months of data. So how has Auto Insights identified that this value is "outside the expected range" if it can't compare it to the same period last year?

In this case, Auto Insights calculates the normal distribution of the data. Auto Insights will consider a value to be an anomaly if it is more than 1.5 standard deviations from the mean of the normal distribution.

3. Anomaly where Auto Insights says a measure "remained flat"

How many types of anomalies are there?

In this example, we can see Auto Insights tells us that Revenue remained flat between November and December 2019. Why is this an anomaly?

Remember that Auto Insights looks at the historic pattern of your data. You can see in this example, Revenue has historically decreased by around 39% for this product between November and December. However, between November and December 2019, Auto Insights observed that Revenue remained steady.

Therefore, as Revenue did not decline, Auto Insights has identified this as an anomaly.

Related Articles

Getting Insights From Auto Insights

Types of Anomalies

FAQ on Unexpected Changes

Overview

The term anomaly is used to describe a discrepancy between two parts of a database. In a retail database, for example, you may have a customer and an invoice table. If you are no longer selling to customers, you may want to purge them from your database periodically. If you delete a customer but keep their invoices for the purchases they have made, you have an anomaly. There is an invoice for a customer that doesn't exist anymore. By deleting all of a customer's invoices when you delete a customer, this anomaly can be avoided. Be sure to close the book on the year before you do this.

Scope

  • In this article, we will explore in detail about data anomalies in dbms with an example
  • We will also have a look at how anomalies are caused and it's types with an example

What are the Anomalies in DBMS?

A database anomaly is an inconsistency in the data resulting from an operation like an update, insertion, or deletion. There can be inconsistencies when a record is held in multiple places and not all of the copies are updated.

Anomalies occur when the data present in the database has too much redundancy and if the tables making up the database are poorly constructed

How are Anomalies Caused in DBMS?

Poorly constructed tables in a database are often the reason behind anomalies. How do you define "poor construction"? A poorly designed table becomes apparent if, when a designer is creating the database, he fails to identify the entities which are interdependent, such as rooms of a hostel and the hostel, and then minimizes the chances of an entity being independent of another.

A database anomaly is a fault within a database, which can occur because of poor planning or when everything is stored in a flat database. A normalization procedure, which combines and splits tables, is usually sufficient to remove this. By normalizing the database, we reduce the likelihood of creating tables that generate anomalies.

Type of Anomalies in DBMS

There are different types of anomalies that can occur in a database. Redundancy anomalies`, for instance, can cause problems during tests if you are a student, and during job interviews, if you are looking for work. However, they are easily spotted and fixed. These are the ones we need to pay attention to:

  1. Update
  2. Insert
  3. Delete

Database anomalies fall into these three major categories:

1. Update anomaly:

Consider a college database that keeps student information in a table called student, which contains four columns: stu_id for the student's id, stu_name for the student's name, stu_address for the student's address, and stu_club for the student's club. Eventually, the table will appear as follows:

stu_idstu_namestu_addressstu_club
330 Muthu Rajasthan Literature
330 Muthu Rajasthan Finance
331 Mukesh Mumbai Crypto
332 Nanda Karnataka Public Speaking
332 Nanda Karnataka Arts

For student Muthu, we have two columns in the above table as he belongs to two clubs at the college. If we want to change Muthu's address, we must update it twice otherwise the data will be inconsistent.

When the correct address gets updated in one club but not in another, Muthu would possess two different addresses, which is not acceptable and could result in inconsistent data.

2. Insert anomaly:

Example

We use the same table in the previous example with modified data

stu_idstu_namestu_addressstu_club
220 Annamalai Kerala yoga
220 Muthu Kerala Music
231 Mukesh Mumbai Crypto
232 Muni Karnataka Public Speaking
232 Muni Karnataka Arts

For example, in the above table if a new student named Nanda has joined the college and he has no department affiliation as the club allows intake of students only from second year. Then we can't insert the data of Nanda into the table since the st_club field cannot accept null values.

3. Delete anomaly:

Example In this example, we use modified data from the previous example

stu_idstu_namestu_addressstu_club
120 Nanthu Maharasthra yoga
122 Nanthu Maharashthra Music
131 Mukesh Mumbai Crypto
132 Muni Karnataka Public Speaking
132 Muni Karnataka Arts

Suppose, for instance, the college at some point closes the club crypto, then deleting the rows that contain s_club as crypto would also delete the information of student Mukesh since he belongs only to this department.

Conclusion

  • A database anomaly usually occurs as a result of poor planning and the use of flat databases.
  • In this article we learned about insert, delete and update anomalies as well as the circumstances that can lead to them.
  • Anomalies are usually removed by normalizing the tables by splitting or joining them
  • Normalization provides structured data

How many types of anomalies are there in DBMS?

There are three types of anomalies that occur when the database is not normalized. These are – Insertion, update and deletion anomaly. Let's take an example to understand this.

What is anomaly and types of anomalies in DBMS?

What are the Anomalies in DBMS? A database anomaly is an inconsistency in the data resulting from an operation like an update, insertion, or deletion. There can be inconsistencies when a record is held in multiple places and not all of the copies are updated.

What are anomalies explain them with example?

plural anomalies. : something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified : something anomalous. They regarded the test results as an anomaly. : deviation from the common rule : irregularity.

What are the anomalies in the relation?

Anomalies occur when there is too much redundancy in the database. Poor table design has related data scattered over various tables. Any new change in the database should be updated in many places. It is also possible that the information is only half present.