Page 38 -
P. 38

2011/6/1
                                                                      3:12
                                                                            Page 1
                           HAN 08-ch01-001-038-9780123814791
                                                                                   #1






                                                                                1



                                                                        Introduction









                     This book is an introduction to the young and fast-growing field of data mining (also known
                               as knowledge discovery from data, or KDD for short). The book focuses on fundamental
                               data mining concepts and techniques for discovering interesting patterns from data in
                               various applications. In particular, we emphasize prominent techniques for developing
                               effective, efficient, and scalable data mining tools.
                                 This chapter is organized as follows. In Section 1.1, you will learn why data mining is
                               in high demand and how it is part of the natural evolution of information technology.
                               Section 1.2 defines data mining with respect to the knowledge discovery process. Next,
                               you will learn about data mining from many aspects, such as the kinds of data that can
                               be mined (Section 1.3), the kinds of knowledge to be mined (Section 1.4), the kinds of
                               technologies to be used (Section 1.5), and targeted applications (Section 1.6). In this
                               way, you will gain a multidimensional view of data mining. Finally, Section 1.7 outlines
                               major data mining research and development issues.

                       1.1     Why Data Mining?


                                                              Necessity, who is the mother of invention. – Plato
                               We live in a world where vast amounts of data are collected daily. Analyzing such data
                               is an important need. Section 1.1.1 looks at how data mining can meet this need by
                               providing tools to discover knowledge from data. In Section 1.1.2, we observe how data
                               mining can be viewed as a result of the natural evolution of information technology.

                         1.1.1 Moving toward the Information Age
                               “We are living in the information age” is a popular saying; however, we are actually living
                                                             1
                               in the data age. Terabytes or petabytes of data pour into our computer networks, the
                               World Wide Web (WWW), and various data storage devices every day from business,


                               1 A petabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to 1 quadrillion bytes, or a thousand
                               terabytes, or 1 million gigabytes.

                               Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques                                1
                               c 
 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43