This book provides an overview of predictive methods demonstrated by open source software modeling with Rattle (R’) and WEKA. Knowledge management involves application of human knowledge (epistemology) with the technological advances of our current society (computer systems) and big data, both in terms of collecting data and in analyzing it. We see three types of analytic tools. Descriptive analytics focus on reports of what has happened. Predictive analytics extend statistical and/or artificial intelligence to provide forecasting capability. It also includes classification modeling. Prescriptive analytics applies quantitative models to optimize systems, or at least to identify improved systems.  Data mining includes descriptive and predictive modeling.  Operations research includes all three. This book focuses on prescriptive analytics.
The book seeks to provide simple explanations and demonstration of some descriptive tools. This second edition provides more examples of big data impact, updates the content on visualization, clarifies some points, and expands coverage of association rules and cluster analysis. Chapter 1 gives an overview in the context of knowledge management. Chapter 2 discusses some basic data types. Chapter 3 covers fundamentals time series modeling tools, and Chapter 4 provides demonstration of multiple regression modeling. Chapter 5 demonstrates regression tree modeling.  Chapter 6 presents autoregressive/integrated/moving average models, as well as GARCH models. Chapter 7 covers the set of data mining tools used in classification, to include special variants support vector machines, random forests, and boosting.  
Models are demonstrated using business related data. The style of the book is intended to be descriptive, seeking to explain how methods work, with some citations, but without deep scholarly reference. The data sets and software are all selected for widespread availability and access by any reader with computer links.

Descriptive Data Mining

by David L Olson and Georg Lauhoff

Published 16 December 2016
This book provides an overview of data mining methods demonstrated by software. Knowledge management involves application of human knowledge (epistemology) with the technological advances of our current society (computer systems) and big data, both in terms of collecting data and in analyzing it. We see three types of analytic tools.  Descriptive analytics focus on reports of what has happened.  Predictive analytics extend statistical and/or artificial intelligence to provide forecasting capability.  It also includes classification modeling.  Diagnostic analytics can apply analysis to sensor input to direct control systems automatically.  Prescriptive analytics applies quantitative models to optimize systems, or at least to identify improved systems.  Data mining includes descriptive and predictive modeling.  Operations research includes all three.  This book focuses on descriptive analytics.
The book seeks to provide simple explanations and demonstration of some descriptive tools.  This second edition provides more examples of big data impact, updates the content on visualization, clarifies some points, and expands coverage of association rules and cluster analysis.  Chapter 1 gives an overview in the context of knowledge management.  Chapter 2 discusses some basic software support to data visualization.  Chapter 3 covers fundamentals of market basket analysis, and Chapter 4 provides demonstration of RFM modeling, a basic marketing data mining tool.  Chapter 5 demonstrates association rule mining.  Chapter 6 is a more in-depth coverage of cluster analysis. Chapter 7 discusses link analysis.  
Models are demonstrated using business related data.  The style of the book is intended to be descriptive, seeking to explain how methods work, with some citations, but without deep scholarly reference.  The data sets and software are all selected for widespread availability and access by any reader with computer links.


COVID-19 has spread around the world, causing tremendous structural change, and severely affecting global supply chains and financial operations. As such there is a need for analytic tools help deal with the impact of the pandemic on the world’s economies; these tools are not panaceas and certainly won’t cure the problems faced, but they offer a means to aid governments, firms, and individuals in coping with specific problems. This book provides an overview of the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluates its effect on financial and supply chain operations. It then discusses epidemic modeling, presenting sources of quantitative and text data, and describing how models are used to illustrate the pandemic impact on supply chains, macroeconomic performance on financial operations. It highlights the specific experiences of the banking system, which offers predictions of the impact on the Swedish banking sector. Further, it examines models related to pandemic planning, such as evaluation of financial contagion, debt risk analysis, and health system efficiency performance, and addresses specific models of pandemic parameters. The book demonstrates various tools using available data on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While it includes some citations, it focuses on describing the methods and explaining how they work, rather than on theory. The data sets and software presented were all selected on the basis of their widespread availability to any reader with computer links.