Data Mining: A Heuristic Approach


Book Description

Real life problems are known to be messy, dynamic and multi-objective, and involve high levels of uncertainty and constraints. Because traditional problem-solving methods are no longer capable of handling this level of complexity, heuristic search methods have attracted increasing attention in recent years for solving such problems. Inspired by nature, biology, statistical mechanics, physics and neuroscience, heuristics techniques are used to solve many problems where traditional methods have failed. Data Mining: A Heuristic Approach will be a repository for the applications of these techniques in the area of data mining.




Heuristics in Analytics


Book Description

Employ heuristic adjustments for truly accurate analysis Heuristics in Analytics presents an approach to analysis that accounts for the randomness of business and the competitive marketplace, creating a model that more accurately reflects the scenario at hand. With an emphasis on the importance of proper analytical tools, the book describes the analytical process from exploratory analysis through model developments, to deployments and possible outcomes. Beginning with an introduction to heuristic concepts, readers will find heuristics applied to statistics and probability, mathematics, stochastic, and artificial intelligence models, ending with the knowledge applications that solve business problems. Case studies illustrate the everyday application and implication of the techniques presented, while the heuristic approach is integrated into analytical modeling, graph analysis, text analytics, and more. Robust analytics has become crucial in the corporate environment, and randomness plays an enormous role in business and the competitive marketplace. Failing to account for randomness can steer a model in an entirely wrong direction, negatively affecting the final outcome and potentially devastating the bottom line. Heuristics in Analytics describes how the heuristic characteristics of analysis can be overcome with problem design, math and statistics, helping readers to: Realize just how random the world is, and how unplanned events can affect analysis Integrate heuristic and analytical approaches to modeling and problem solving Discover how graph analysis is applied in real-world scenarios around the globe Apply analytical knowledge to customer behavior, insolvency prevention, fraud detection, and more Understand how text analytics can be applied to increase the business knowledge Every single factor, no matter how large or how small, must be taken into account when modeling a scenario or event—even the unknowns. The presence or absence of even a single detail can dramatically alter eventual outcomes. From raw data to final report, Heuristics in Analytics contains the information analysts need to improve accuracy, and ultimately, predictive, and descriptive power.




Handbook of Heuristics


Book Description

Heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, loosely applicable information to control problem solving. Algorithms, for example, are a type of heuristic. By contrast, Metaheuristics are methods used to design Heuristics and may coordinate the usage of several Heuristics toward the formulation of a single method. GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures) is an example of a Metaheuristic. To the layman, heuristics may be thought of as ‘rules of thumb’ but despite its imprecision, heuristics is a very rich field that refers to experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery. Any given solution/heuristic is not guaranteed to be optimal but heuristic methodologies are used to speed up the process of finding satisfactory solutions where optimal solutions are impractical. The introduction to this Handbook provides an overview of the history of Heuristics along with main issues regarding the methodologies covered. This is followed by Chapters containing various examples of local searches, search strategies and Metaheuristics, leading to an analyses of Heuristics and search algorithms. The reference concludes with numerous illustrations of the highly applicable nature and implementation of Heuristics in our daily life. Each chapter of this work includes an abstract/introduction with a short description of the methodology. Key words are also necessary as part of top-matter to each chapter to enable maximum search engine optimization. Next, chapters will include discussion of the adaptation of this methodology to solve a difficult optimization problem, and experiments on a set of representative problems.




Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Approaches Based on Rule Induction Techniques


Book Description

This book outlines the core theory and practice of data mining and knowledge discovery (DM & KD) examining theoretical foundations for various methods, and presenting an array of examples, many drawn from real-life applications. Most theoretical developments are accompanied by extensive empirical analysis, offering a deep insight into both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject. The book presents the combined research experiences of 40 expert contributors of world renown.




Principles of Data Mining


Book Description

The first truly interdisciplinary text on data mining, blending the contributions of information science, computer science, and statistics. The growing interest in data mining is motivated by a common problem across disciplines: how does one store, access, model, and ultimately describe and understand very large data sets? Historically, different aspects of data mining have been addressed independently by different disciplines. This is the first truly interdisciplinary text on data mining, blending the contributions of information science, computer science, and statistics. The book consists of three sections. The first, foundations, provides a tutorial overview of the principles underlying data mining algorithms and their application. The presentation emphasizes intuition rather than rigor. The second section, data mining algorithms, shows how algorithms are constructed to solve specific problems in a principled manner. The algorithms covered include trees and rules for classification and regression, association rules, belief networks, classical statistical models, nonlinear models such as neural networks, and local "memory-based" models. The third section shows how all of the preceding analysis fits together when applied to real-world data mining problems. Topics include the role of metadata, how to handle missing data, and data preprocessing.




Managing Data Mining Technologies in Organizations


Book Description

Portals present unique strategic challenges in the academic environment. Their conceptualization and design requires the input of campus constituents who seldom interact and whose interests are often opposite. The implementation of a portal requires a coordination of applications and databases controlled by different campus units at a level that may never before have been attempted at the institution. Building a portal is as much about constructing intra-campus bridges as it is about user interfaces and content. Designing Portals: Opportunities and Challenges discusses the current status of portals in higher education by providing insight into the role portals play in an institution's business and educational strategy, by taking the reader through the processes of conceptualization, design, and implementation of the portals (in different stages of development) at major universities and by offering insight from three producers of portal software systems in use at institutions of higher learning and elsewhere.




Censorship, Surveillance, and Privacy: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications


Book Description

The censorship and surveillance of individuals, societies, and countries have been a long-debated ethical and moral issue. In consequence, it is vital to explore this controversial topic from all angles. Censorship, Surveillance, and Privacy: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source on the social, moral, religious, and political aspects of censorship and surveillance. It also explores the techniques of technologically supported censorship and surveillance. Highlighting a range of topics such as political censorship, propaganda, and information privacy, this multi-volume book is geared towards government officials, leaders, professionals, policymakers, media specialists, academicians, and researchers interested in the various facets of censorship and surveillance.




Association Rule Hiding for Data Mining


Book Description

Privacy and security risks arising from the application of different data mining techniques to large institutional data repositories have been solely investigated by a new research domain, the so-called privacy preserving data mining. Association rule hiding is a new technique in data mining, which studies the problem of hiding sensitive association rules from within the data. Association Rule Hiding for Data Mining addresses the problem of "hiding" sensitive association rules, and introduces a number of heuristic solutions. Exact solutions of increased time complexity that have been proposed recently are presented, as well as a number of computationally efficient (parallel) approaches that alleviate time complexity problems, along with a thorough discussion regarding closely related problems (inverse frequent item set mining, data reconstruction approaches, etc.). Unsolved problems, future directions and specific examples are provided throughout this book to help the reader study, assimilate and appreciate the important aspects of this challenging problem. Association Rule Hiding for Data Mining is designed for researchers, professors and advanced-level students in computer science studying privacy preserving data mining, association rule mining, and data mining. This book is also suitable for practitioners working in this industry.




Data Mining Applications with R


Book Description

Data Mining Applications with R is a great resource for researchers and professionals to understand the wide use of R, a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics, in solving different problems in industry. R is widely used in leveraging data mining techniques across many different industries, including government, finance, insurance, medicine, scientific research and more. This book presents 15 different real-world case studies illustrating various techniques in rapidly growing areas. It is an ideal companion for data mining researchers in academia and industry looking for ways to turn this versatile software into a powerful analytic tool. R code, Data and color figures for the book are provided at the RDataMining.com website. - Helps data miners to learn to use R in their specific area of work and see how R can apply in different industries - Presents various case studies in real-world applications, which will help readers to apply the techniques in their work - Provides code examples and sample data for readers to easily learn the techniques by running the code by themselves




Data Mining Methods and Models


Book Description

Apply powerful Data Mining Methods and Models to Leverage your Data for Actionable Results Data Mining Methods and Models provides: * The latest techniques for uncovering hidden nuggets of information * The insight into how the data mining algorithms actually work * The hands-on experience of performing data mining on large data sets Data Mining Methods and Models: * Applies a "white box" methodology, emphasizing an understanding of the model structures underlying the softwareWalks the reader through the various algorithms and provides examples of the operation of the algorithms on actual large data sets, including a detailed case study, "Modeling Response to Direct-Mail Marketing" * Tests the reader's level of understanding of the concepts and methodologies, with over 110 chapter exercises * Demonstrates the Clementine data mining software suite, WEKA open source data mining software, SPSS statistical software, and Minitab statistical software * Includes a companion Web site, www.dataminingconsultant.com, where the data sets used in the book may be downloaded, along with a comprehensive set of data mining resources. Faculty adopters of the book have access to an array of helpful resources, including solutions to all exercises, a PowerPoint(r) presentation of each chapter, sample data mining course projects and accompanying data sets, and multiple-choice chapter quizzes. With its emphasis on learning by doing, this is an excellent textbook for students in business, computer science, and statistics, as well as a problem-solving reference for data analysts and professionals in the field. An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available onlne.