GOLDEN MEANS: CANNIBALS AND RAMPANT COMMERCIALISM
by Inderpal Bhandari, executive editor at large

Inderpal Bhandari is widely recognized as a leading researcher in data mining and computer science. He is one of the few experts who have successfully demonstrated how the emerging technology of data mining can be translated into useful applications that offer a competitive advantage. Recently, he formed Virtual Gold, Inc. to implement his technical vision. Virtual Gold also offers a consulting service to help clients differentiate themselves from their competitors via the use of data mining technology.

From 1990-1997, Dr. Bhandari was a member of the research staff at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where he received several awards for his pioneering work in data mining and in software engineering. He was the creator and project director of IBM's Advanced Scout, a data mining program used extensively by coaches of the National Basketball Association to devise new strategies based on the automatic identification of hidden patterns in game data and video.

He was educated at Carnegie Mellon University (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering, 1990), the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (M.S.) and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India (B.Engg). He has published extensively in leading computer-related journals and conferences and has deployed several cutting-edge technological solutions to business problems.

Dr. Bhandari comments: "In an interview with Network Computing last year, I was asked to comment on the privacy issues involved in data mining. My response: 'The problem is not so much with data mining as it is with the availability of personal information. Something really has to be done, especially in regard to certain kinds of information that identify the individual, like Social Security numbers -- there's just so much scope for misuse.'"

DATA MINING WITH THE EXPLORATION WAREHOUSE: PART I
by W H Inmon

Bill Inmon has over 26 years of database technology management experience and data warehouse design expertise, and has published 35 books and more than 300 articles in major computer journals. His books have been translated into nine languages. He is known globally for his seminars on developing data warehouses and has been a keynote speaker for every major computing association.

Before founding Pine Cone Systems, Inmon was a co-founder of Prism Solutions. He is responsible for the high-level design of Pine Cone products, as well as for the architecture of planned and future products. Inmon has consulted with a large number of Fortune 1000 clients, offering data warehouse design and database management services. He also worked for American Management Services and Coopers & Lybrand.

Bill Inmon's latest book is Managing the Data Warehouse: Practical techniques for Monitoring Operations and Performance, Administering Data and Tools, Managing Change and Growth, (1997) co-authored with J. D. Welch and Katherine L. Glassey. Publisher: New York, NY: John Wiley ISBN: 0-471-16310-4

In the first installment of a three-part series Inmon writes: "Data warehousing has taken the world in a whirlwind. In 1990 data warehousing was a theory uniformly despised by the database theoreticians. In 1998 data warehousing is conventional wisdom practiced by thousands of corporations around the world."

MODELING FOR MAXIMUM PROFIT
James Lemieux, Senior Analyst, Trajecta, Inc

Trajecta Inc. is a data mining and optimization company headquartered at Austin, Texas. http://www.trajecta.com Lemieux writes: "One goal in building statistical models for business applications is to give decision makers useable information. However, a statistical modeling method which provides a clearer understanding of these business applications would be helpful. Only in this way will the decision makers receive the information they can truly use to enhance the bottom lines of their companies. This article describes the threshold function, which considers the costs associated with business decisions when determining how to apply a statistical model to a dataset. (Although the threshold function was developed specifically for use with Trajecta's neural network modeling tool dbProphet, the concepts inherent in the function could be applied to any modeling tool.)

SAS Warehouse Administrator to Feature Data Transformation Network
SAS Institute plans to fit its Warehouse Administrator tool with a data transformation framework, enabling customized data transformations. The feature is slated to debut next month. This feature, along with new Java browser support, will be included in SAS/Warehouse Administrator 1.3.

Analysts Warn End-Users to be Aware of Possible Shortcomings in Data Mart Tools
A recent report notes that data mart tool vendors, in their zeal to market products for gathering, cleansing, normalizing, mining and analyzing data, have frequently sold information systems organizations a bill of goods.

DATA MINING WITH THE EXPLORATION WAREHOUSE
"Once the exploration warehouse is created the data miner has a convenient and isolated place in which to test hypotheses and to do other analytical activities."
-- W H Inmon

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 04.14.98

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