Data clustering is an important data exploration technique with many applications in data mining. Kmeans is one of the most well known methods of data mining that partitions a dataset into groups of patterns, many methods have been proposed to improve the performance of the K-means algorithm. Standardization is the central preprocessing step in data mining, to standardize values of features or attributes from different dynamic range into a specific range. In this paper, we have analyzed the performances of the three standardization methods on conventional K-means algorithm. By comparing the results on infectious diseases datasets, it was found that the result obtained by the z-score standardization method is more effective and efficient than min-max and decimal scaling standardization methods.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine problems of housing delivery in Nigeria and propose some guiding principles that will lead to successful housing delivery in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted through in-depth analysis of some documents related to housing sector in Nigeria. These include National Housing Policy of Nigeria, Report of the Vision 2020 National Technical Working Group on Housing, as well as publications from UN-Habitat. Moreover, literature on the subject matter have been also reviewed. Findings Major constraints to housing delivery in Nigeria includes lack of effective housing finance system, unstable macroeconomic environment, difficulty in accessing land with secure tenure, high cost of building materials, shortages of skilled labour and poor infrastructural facilities. Research limitations/implications The major limitation of this study is that no interview or field survey to collect data from stakeholders has been performed. Practical implications The study can assist housing policy makers to understands important elements that must be incorporated in the national housing policies. It can also assist construction industries to understand how to improve efficiency and productivity in their projects. Originality/value The findings of this paper was based on previous studies of housing delivery and analysis of data from some formal and informal documents The findings from this study have been used to suggest some guiding principles that can assist in solving the housing delivery problems in Nigeria.

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