The Hindu Business Line : Data mining opens up new vistas, says Prof Rao

Data mining — science of extracting useful information from large data sets or data bases — is being employed in different disciplines and it is proving to be of immense value, even though there are purists who sometimes wonder whether it is statistics proper, according to Prof C.R. Rao, Eberly professor, Penn State University (USA).

Prof Rao, a former student of Andhra University and a Padma Vibhushan awardee, is a distinguished academicians in the field of statistics. He is here to participate in the four-day international conference on data mining being organised by Andhra University. The conference will conclude on Friday.

In a lecture on Thursday, Prof Rao said that many scientists and researchers were employing data mining, “even though the methods are not conventional statistical ones. Nevertheless, they are a part of statistics. For instance, gene mapping and sequencing entails use of data mining techniques, as you have to deal with millions of gene combinations. It can be given a different name, but it is statistics”.

He said data mining could be used in different ways for different purposes. “It can be used to track down a terrorist, or to find out whether a person is a heterosexual or a homosexual, and in myriad other ways in international commerce and trade,” he explained.

Therefore, he said, there was no point in getting into fruitless academic debates on whether data mining could be considered statistics proper or not.

“Of course, there are techniques in data mining such as boosting, which are not approved by conventional statisticians. It is a technique, which involves starting from an apparently incorrect supposition and improving upon it to arrive at the right answer,” he said.

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