Tsau Young Lin Books

Data-mining has become a popular research topic in recent years for the treatment of the "data rich and information poor" syndrome. Currently, application oriented engineers are only concerned with their immediate problems, which results in an ad hoc method of problem solving. Researchers, on the other hand, lack an understanding of the practical issues of data-mining for real-world problems and often concentrate on issues that are of no significance to the practitioners. In this volume, we hope to remedy problems by (1) presenting a theoretical foundation of data-mining, and (2) providing important new directions for data-mining research. A set of well respected data mining theoreticians were invited to present their views on the fundamental science of data mining. We have also called on researchers with practical data mining experiences to present new important data-mining topics.

During the past few years, data mining has grown rapidly in visibility and importance within information processing and decision analysis. This is par ticularly true in the realm of e-commerce, where data mining is moving from a „nice-to-have“ to a „must-have“ status. In a different though related context, a new computing methodology called granular computing is emerging as a powerful tool for the conception, analysis and design of information/intelligent systems. In essence, data mining deals with summarization of information which is resident in large data sets, while granular computing plays a key role in the summarization process by draw ing together points (objects) which are related through similarity, proximity or functionality. In this perspective, granular computing has a position of centrality in data mining. Another methodology which has high relevance to data mining and plays a central role in this volume is that of rough set theory. Basically, rough set theory may be viewed as a branch of granular computing. However, its applications to data mining have predated that of granular computing.

„Foundations of Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery“ contains the latest results and new directions in data mining research. Data mining, which integrates various technologies, including computational intelligence, database and knowledge management, machine learning, soft computing, and statistics, is one of the fastest growing fields in computer science. Although many data mining techniques have been developed, further development of the field requires a close examination of its foundations. This volume presents the results of investigations into the foundations of the discipline, and represents the state of the art for much of the current research. This book will prove extremely valuable and fruitful for data mining researchers, no matter whether they would like to uncover the fundamental principles behind data mining, or apply the theories to practical applications.