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ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

GOLDEN MEANS: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, DATA MINING AND THE LONG ROAD TO WISDOM
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 writes: "Knowledge management is an emerging area. Often times this is simply another way of saying that at the present time we really do not understand the subject. But I think William Woods has a fair understanding. I came across a good description of knowledge management in a recent article written by him in the Sun Journal."

DATA WAREHOUSING: A CATALYST FOR OPERATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT: PART II
by Kathy Long

Kathy Long is a Principal Consultant with Spectrum Technology Group. She has enjoyed a diverse career in the information systems field over the past 16 years, working as a business analyst, data and process modeler, meta-data analyst, and application designer. She has managed a variety of projects including strategic business modeling, data integration and systems development in the manufacturing, natural gas, pharmaceutical, consumer products and telecommunications fields. As a consultant with Spectrum's data warehousing practice, she has played a lead role in several full-lifecycle data warehouse iterations that defined sales, cost, product supply chain and inventory analytical information. Ms. Long is experienced in data migration design, logical and dimensional modeling, meta-data architecture and analytical information requirements definition.

In the concluding segment of a two-part series, Long writes: "The definition of architecture is 'the art or science of designing or building structures'. The architecture describes the how the distinct models developed to meet objectives form a cohesive framework. If we take this approach, a discipline is assumed where meta-data is not an afterthought, but an integral component of the warehouse environment. The meta-data architecture would include models defining meta-data data, meta-data processes, and the meta-data technology infrastructure."

Part I : 10182

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: INSIDE THE BLACK BOX
by Mike Niemann

Mike Niemann is a Modeling Analyst at Trajecta, Inc., a data mining and optimization company headquartered at Austin, Texas. In his commentary, Niemann observes: "As analysts have become more acquainted with neural network based prediction, the method's critics have become less vocal. However, the "black box" image of neural networks regarding the results they produce still persists. This perception remains primarily because the one-to-one relationships between independent variables and regression coefficients of traditional statistical methods have been replaced by a complex myriad of weights in neural network models."

ACTION ITEMS

ShowBase and Quintillion Join Forces to Bring Powerful Information Mining Tools to the Web
ShowBase Inc. has announced that it has acquired Ottawa based company, Quintillion Corporation, in a transaction valued at $1,200,000. ShowBase now holds the rights to a data mining technology called Q-Why, which it will combine with its existing technology to develop powerful information mining solutions for the Web.

Platinum Technology's DB2 Tools Move Data at Very High Speeds in IBM S/390 Teraplex Center Tests
Performance tests conducted at IBM's S/390 Teraplex Integration Center have shown that PLATINUM technology, inc.'s DB2 management tools running on the IBM S/390 Parallel Enterprise Server can move data at speeds that would exceed today's average business requirements. This high speed of data movement is crucial for organizations that are implementing large, enterprise-wide systems, such as data warehouses and business intelligence applications.

Quantum Corp Creates a `Virtual Data Warehouse` to Win the 1998 Best Practices Award From the Data Warehousing Institute
Quantum Corp., a provider of mass storage, has been awarded the 1998 Best Practices in Data Warehousing Award for Meta Data Management from The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI).

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"(A) discipline is assumed where meta-data is not an afterthought, but an integral component of the warehouse environment."
-- Kathy Long

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