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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The top data mining text on the market, June 18, 2009
This review is from: Handbook of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Applications (Hardcover)
The "Handbook of Statistical Analysis & Data Mining Applications" is the finest book I have seen on the subject. It is not only a beautifully crafted book, with numerous color graphs, chart, tables, and screen shots, but the statistical discussion is both clear and comprehensive.
The text does not use only one statistical data mining application to display examples, but provides a rather thorough training in the use of both SAS-Enterprise Miner and STATISTICA Data Miner. A section on SPSS Clementine is also provided, giving comparisons between the various packages. Also employed are STATISTICA's C&RT, CHAID, MARSpline, and other data mining and graphical analytic tools.
The text does not burden the typical data mining researcher with the internals of how the various tools work. It is therefore not steeped in equations. Some are to be found, of course, but the emphasis is on understanding the concepts involved and on how to apply these concepts to real data - which is provided to the reader in terms of data tutorials. Specialized datasets have been prepared by both authors and outside experts in various areas of inquiry ranging from entertainment, financial, engineering, clinical psychology, dentistry, demographics, medical informatics, meteorology, astronomy, and more. Each tutorial is associated with data stored on either the associated CD that comes with the book, or which can be downloaded from a companion web site. Worked out examples of how to use data mining techniques on such data is provided to help the reader gain a solid feel for the data mining enterprise. The final third of the book is devoted to a partial selection of the available tutorials. The two earlier chapters demonstrate how to use data mining software for the analysis of data.
I highly recommend this work to anyone having an interest in data mining. I might also add that the Amazon price of $72.37 is truly excellent for an 864 page academic text, having full color tables and screen shots on some one-third of the pages, plus a CD. A bargain indeed.
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Adequate, but not spectacular; definitely for practitioners, June 2, 2010
This review is from: Handbook of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Applications (Hardcover)
This book is for practitioners, not for those seeking a deeper understanding of data mining. It both makes and delivers on that claim. All major data mining topics are covered, though in a necessarily shallow manner in keeping with the book's goal of getting past the theory and moving to the practice. Oddly, the very start of the book does have a bit of theory in the form of the historical roots of statistics and the limitations of statistics that leads to the need for data mining; I found this bit of history quite fascinating and enlightening; it is something I've found in few other data mining books, and I've read several. The trouble is, I do like theory a bit. I have a master's in computer science, so I'm a bit biased that way, thus my relatively low scoring of the work. About 1/3rd of the book is dedicated to working through real problems, and that is the overwhelming strength of the book. If you are one who learns by doing rather than by theorizing, you'll find this book outstanding. The biggest criticism I have of the book is that it is clear that there are significant parts where the authors just didn't have their hearts in it; it felt like they wrote certain sections because the publisher told them they had to in order to hit some type of target marketing segment. It's also unfortunate that all three software products provided expire in 90 days or less. I'm never one to accomplish anything in 90 days, let alone get through a 700-page technical work!!! I know they are the 3 top mining tools, but I much prefer RapidMiner, a product that is amazingly feature-rich, so easy to use it is actually fun, supported by a robust open-source model, and free. Overall, a solid work. But to me, theory matters, that's one star down; and rigorous, enthusiastic writing matters, so that's two stars down. In the 3-stars that remain is lots of hands-on practice if you don't mind expiring software, and for that it is very strong.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I really liked this book, June 27, 2009
This review is from: Handbook of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Applications (Hardcover)
I had experience with many of the statistical tools that fall under the heading of data mining. There are good books on GAMs and so on. What I like about this book is that it embeds those methods in a broader context, that of the philosophy and structure of data mining writ large, especially as the methods are used in the corporate world. To me, it was really helpful in thinking like a data miner, especially as it involves the mix of science and art.
I also had no experience with Statistica Data Miner but have been very impressed with the program relative to those that are less well documented (WEKA) and too darned expensive (SAS EM)
The richness of the examples is so helpful.
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