Intelligent Data Analysis

The obvious question, when confronted with a book with the title of this one, is why "intelligent" data analysis? The answer is that modern data analysis uses tools developed by a wide variety of intellectual communities and that "intelligent data analysis" , or IDA, has been adopted as an overall term. It should be taken to imply the intelligent application of data analytic tools, and also the application of "intelligent" data analytic tools, computer programs which probe more deeply into structure than first generation methods. These aspects reflect the distinct influences of statistics and machine learning on the subject matter. The importance of intelligent data analysis arises from the fact that the modern world is a data-driven world. We are surrounded by data, numerical and otherwise, which must be analysed and processed to convert it into infor­ mation which informs, instructs, answers, or otherwise aids understanding and decision making. The quantity of such data is huge and growing, the number of sources is effectively unlimited, and the range of areas covered is vast: industrial, commercial, financial, and scientific activities are all generating such data.