What is Data Mining?
Data mining is the process of discovering patterns, relationships, or associations within data, analyzing that data from different angles, and summarizing the relationships identified. The knowledge gained from this process can then be applied toward achieving
particular goals such as increasing revenue or reducing costs. Data mining software works by finding correlations among dozens of fields in large databases. Text, numbers, and facts are all types of data that can be mined.
NIH/National Cancer Institute - 3D Mind Tools
The Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) is a branch of the National Cancer Institute that develops treatments for cancer and AIDS. Since its inception, DTP has tested more than 100,000 therapeutic agents, resulting in a large amount of data that research scientists were finding increasingly difficult to analyze. The tools at their disposal were disjointed, inefficient, and incapable of handling multiple users.
Using Adobe Cold Fusion, Perl, and Microsoft SQL Server, GNSI developed an Internet site that provides an integrated set of tools that can quickly access vast amounts of data, detect and report trends, and be available to all scientists simultaneously. 3D Mind Tools allows scientists to identify compounds that are related, compare their activities, and test hypotheses about their anti-cancer mechanisms.
3D Mind Tools achieved a number of positive results, including:
