Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Machine learning

We survey work on the different uses of graphical mapping and interaction techniques for visual data mining of large data sets represented as table data. Basic terminology related to data mining, data sets, and visualization is introduced. Previous work on information visualization is reviewed in light of different categorizations of techniques and systems. The role of interaction techniques is discussed, in addition to work addressing the question of selecting and evaluating visualization techniques. We review some representative work on the use of information visualization techniques in the context of mining data. This includes both visual data exploration and visually expressing the outcome of specific mining algorithms. We also review recent innovative approaches that attempt to integrate visualization into the DM/KDD process, using it to enhance user interaction and comprehension.

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From visual data exploration to visual data mining: a survey

As a confluence of data mining and World Wide Web technologies, it is now possible to perform data mining on Web log records collected from the Internet Web-page access history. The behaviour of Web page readers is imprinted in the Web server log files. Analyzing and exploring regularities in this behaviour can improve the system performance, enhance the quality and delivery of Internet information services to the end user, and identify populations of potential customers for electronic commerce. Thus, by observing people using collections of data, data mining can bring a considerable contribution to digital library designers. In a joint effort between the TeleLearning-NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence) project on the Virtual University and the NCE-IRIS project on data mining, we have been developing a knowledge discovery tool, called WebLogMiner, for mining Web server log files. This paper presents the design of WebLogMiner, reports current progress and outlines future work in this direction.

Discovering Web access patterns and trends by applying OLAP and data mining technology on Web logs

A system that incorporates an interactive graphical user interface for visualizing clusters (categories) and segments (summarized clusters) of data. Specifically, the system automatically categorizes incoming case data into clusters, summarizes those clusters into segments, determines similarity measures for the segments, scores the selected segments through the similarity measures, and then forms and visually depicts hierarchical organizations of those selected clusters. The system also automatically and dynamically reduces, as necessary, a depth of the hierarchical organization, through elimination of unnecessary hierarchical levels and inter-nodal links, based on similarity measures of segments or segment groups. Attribute/value data that tends to meaningfully characterize each segment is also scored, rank ordered based on normalized scores, and then graphically displayed. The system permits a user to browse through the hierarchy, and, to readily comprehend segment inter-relationships, selectively expand and contract the displayed hierarchy, as desired, as well as to compare two selected segments or segment groups together and graphically display the results of that comparison. An alternative discriminant-based cluster scoring technique is also presented.

Apparatus and accompanying methods for visualizing clusters of data and hierarchical cluster classifications

Knowledge discovery in databases is a rapidly growing field, whose development is driven by strong research interests as well as urgent practical, social, and economical needs. While the last few years knowledge discovery tools have been used mainly in research environments, sophisticated software products are now rapidly emerging. In this paper, we provide an overview of common knowledge discovery tasks and approaches to solve these tasks. We propose a feature classification scheme that can be used to study knowledge and data mining software. This scheme is based on the software's general characteristics, database connectivity, and data mining characteristics. We then apply our feature classification scheme to investigate 43 software products, which are either research prototypes or commercially available. Finally, we specify features that we consider important for knowledge discovery software to possess in order to accommodate its users effectively, as well as issues that are either not addressed or insufficiently solved yet.

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A survey of data mining and knowledge discovery software tools

MineSet™, Silicon Graphics' interactive system for data mining, integrates three powerful technologies: database access, analytical data mining, and data visualization. It supports the knowledge discovery process from data access and preparation through iterative analysis and visualization to deployment. Mine-Set is based on a client-server architecture that scales to large databases. The database access component provides a rich set of operators that can be used to preprocess and transform the stored data into forms appropriate for visualization and analytical mining. The 3D visualization capabilities allow direct data visualization for exploratory analysis, including tools for displaying high-dimensional data containing geographical and hierarchical information. The analytical mining algorithms help identify potentially interesting models of the data, which can be viewed using visualization tools specialized for the learned models. Third party vendors can interface to the MineSet tools for model deployment and for integration with other packages.

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MineSet: an integrated system for data mining

MineSet™ is a commercial data mining product from Silicon Graphics. It provides an interactive platform for data mining, integrating three powerful technologies: database and file access, analytical data mining engines, and data visualization. MineSet supports the knowledge discovery process from data access and preparation through iterative analysis and visualization to deployment. MineSet uses a client-server architecture for scalability and support of large data. The data access component provides a rich set of transformations that can be used to process stored data into forms appropriate for visualization and analytical mining. MineSet's two- and three-dimensional visualization capabilities allow direct data visualization for exploratory analysis. The analytical mining algorithms create models that can be viewed using visualization tools specialized for the learned models or deployed as part of a larger system. Third party vendors can interface to the MineSet tools for model deployment and for integration with other packages.

Cliff Brunk

Papers

MineSet: an integrated system for data mining

Case studies: Commercial, multiple mining tasks systems: mineSet