You may use Microsoft Excel or any other technology to complete the question as long as the explanation is clear and a screen shot is included.

Please complete the following problems:

1. Please use the Chapter 6 webfile "FBS" to help you complete the following. The FBS level of the NCAA consists of over 100 schools. Most of those schools belong to one of several conferences that compete with each other on a regular basis. Suppose the NCAA has commissioned a study that will propose the formation of conferences based on the similarities of the constituent schools. Each row in the FBS file contains information on the school. The variables include football stadium capacity, latitude, longitude, athletic dept revenue, endowment, and undergraduate enrollment.

a. Apply k-means clustering with k=10 using football stadium capacity, latitude, longitude, endowment, and undergraduate enrollment as variables. Be sure to Normalize input data, and specify 50 iterations and 10 random starts in Step 2 of the XLMiner k-Means Clustering procedure. Analyze the resultant clusters. What is the smallest cluster? What is the least dense cluster (as measured by average distance in the cluster)? What makes the least dense cluster so diverse?

b. What problems do you see with the plan with defining the school membership of the 10 conferences directly with the 10 clusters?

c. Repeat part a, but this time do not Normalize input data in Step 2 of the XLMiner k-means clustering procedure. Analyze the resultant clusters. Why do they differ from part a? Identify the dominating factor(s) in the formation of these new clusters.

2. Please use the Chapter 6 webfile "CookieMonster" to help you complete the following. Cookie Monster Inc. is a company that specializes in the development of software that tracks Web browsing history of individuals. Using the binary matrix format, the entry in row i and column j indicates whether Web site j was visited by user i.

Using a minimum support of 800 transactions and a minimum confidence of 50 percent, use XLMinder to generate a list of association rules. Review the top 14 rules. What information does this analysis provide Cookie Monster regarding the online behavior of individuals?