No label defined (Q4787572)

Knowledge discovery in databases has been receiving a lot of attention for years now which has led to a fair amount of books and other publications on the subject. There is quite a lot of software tools offered to support data mining on the internet and for the market. The term data mining has several, slightly different interpretations. The reviewed book looks at data mining as the application of indirect automatic data analysis techniques that utilize more complex and sophisticated tools than those which analysts used in the past for mere data analysis. The author describes data mining concepts, models, methods, and algorithms (see the subtitle) with a focus on applicability of data mining, and with a well balanced scientific background. The text is a comprehensive introduction to the amount of knowlegde which is gathered since data mining received broad attention. It emphasizes the understanding of methodologies and the meaning of parameters which is the background for applicability of the right software tools and analysis techniques in a particular practical situation. The content of the book is as follows: Data mining concepts, Preparing the data, Data reduction, Learning from data, Statistical methods, Cluster Analysis, Decision Trees and decision rules, Association rules, Artificial neural networks, Genetic Algorithms, Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic, visualization methods, References (ordered for each chapter), Appendix A: Data-mining tools (Commercially and publicly available tools, Web site links), Appendix B: Data-mining applications (a short list of usefullness of data mining in a special field and a short discription of pitfals of data mining. Fields: financial data analysis, telecommunication, retail industry, healthcare and biomedical research, science and engineering.) The book is written in English. The text is clear and well understandable. Each chapter ends with Review questions and problems and References for further studies. The book is recommended as a text book for students in the first place. It is suitable for self study as well. It is also recommended as a basic guidance to practicing data analysts. Practitionairs will profit from the author's long experience as director of the lab for electronics and computer science at the University of Sarajevo and the data mining lab at the University of Loisville.