Data mining Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Data mining - Essay Example t generally apply: every application must deliver benefits to the users; users must feel comfortable with the way in which the system manipulates and presents information. Data mining is based on statistical analysis and modeling techniques, Data mining becomes a strategic weapon of organizations because it increases significantly the volume of information that can be stored and the ease with which it can be updated. This enables new services to be provided in a way that was not economically feasible before. The three main steps in data mining are discovering, predicting modeling and forensic analysis. â€Å"Discovery is the process of looking in a database to find hidden patterns without a predetermined idea or hypothesis about what the patterns may be† (Pushpa 2007, p.1). Discovery consists of three subcategories: conditional logic, affinities and associations, trends and associations. â€Å"In predictive modeling patterns discovered from the database are used to predict the future.† (Pushpa 2007, p. 2). Predicting modeling involves outcomes prediction and forecasting. Most of the data mining applications used by an organization consist of simply taking information in one form, performing some very simpl e transformations to that information (rarely more than aggregation and the usual arithmetical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and then presenting the processed information in another form. Thus, forensic analysis allows both deviation detection and link analysis. It is defined as: †the process of applying the extracted patterns to find anomalous or unusual data elements† (Pushpa 2007, p.2).The underlying architecture of data warehousing that an organization needs to best perform these tasks is obvious. There must be some form of flexible, central data store containing all the information and data that are going to be manipulated, fed by a variety of information-gathering processes. The main data mining techniques are