Karol Opara – författare

This book presents a new perspective on and a new approach to a wide spectrum of situations, related to data analysis, actually, a kind of a new paradigm. Namely, for a given data set and its partition, whose origins may be of any kind, the authors try to reconstruct this partition on the basis of the data set given, using very broadly conceived clustering procedure. The main advantages of this new paradigm concern the substantive aspects of the particular cases considered, mainly in view of the variety of interpretations, which can be assumed in the framework of the paradigm. Due to the novel problem formulation and the flexibility in the interpretations of this problem and its components, the domains, which are encompassed (or at least affected) by the potential use of the paradigm, include cluster analysis, classification, outlier detection, feature selection, and even factor analysis as well as geometry of the data set. The book is useful for all those who look for new, nonconventional approaches to their data analysis problems.

This book presents ample, richly illustrated account on results and experience from a project, dealing with the analysis of data concerning behavior patterns on the Web. The advertising on the Web is dealt with, and the ultimate issue is to assess the share of the artificial, automated activity (ads fraud), as opposed to the genuine human activity.

After a comprehensive introductory part, a full-fledged report is provided from a wide range of analytic and design efforts, oriented at: the representation of the Web behavior patterns, formation and selection of telling variables, structuring of the populations of behavior patterns, including the use of clustering, classification of these patterns, and devising most effective and efficient techniques to separate the artificial from the genuine traffic.

A series of important and useful conclusions is drawn, concerning both the nature of the observed phenomenon, and hence the characteristics of the respective datasets, and theappropriateness of the methodological approaches tried out and devised. Some of these observations and conclusions, both related to data and to methods employed, provide a new insight and are sometimes surprising.

The book provides also a rich bibliography on the main problem approached and on the various methodologies tried out.