Data Mining is Essential to Healthcare

Data Mining has become very popular in the healthcare industry.This is primarily because many healthcare transactions are too complex to be processed by traditional methods and data mining can make these transactions less complex and voluminous. Data mining has been used to detect fraud and abuse and also to manage customer relationships and healthcare. A disadvantage to data accessibility is that since data mining exist in many different forms such as clinics, administration and laboratories data have to be collected way before data mining can be done. Data warehousing can be a soulution to this, but it has its flaws as well. Overall, data mining can be very useful now or even in the near future in the healthcare industry.

Source: http://www.cmio.net/index.php?option=com_articles&view=article&id=31762:jhim-data-mining-beneficial-essential-to-healthcare

How Organizations Decide to Use Data Mining

How to Do Data Mining in the Perfect Manner

An organization's usage of data mining can have a challenging start. The "right" or "wrong" use of data mining tools and practices can greatly impact revenues and costs. This article is saying that data mining use should be determined by taking into account business needs, data, and performance.

If a business is in a high growth stage, it will need to look at potential customers and their preferences. Software that organizes prospect information would be a good choice to help the company. It can also sort the potential customers into groups based on characteristics such as age, location, and personal interests. If a company already has the data it requires to be profitable, data mining may not be necessary. If a company is experiencing declines in sales, data mining can be used to determine solutions for how to retain customers. To conclude, organizations make decisions on how to use data mining based on needs, performance, and availability of data.

Data mining gone wrong... well tampered with anyway

Source:http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining/2011/04/when-data-mining-goes-horribly-wrong.html

This article shows one of the fatal flaws with data mining if the processes for the computer to follow have been too widely defined or just told to collect and combine what data it relevant but not checking for relevancy. In this article Google made a mistake in the programming they used to mine for data in a social site called West Seattle Blog. The program started to combine information about different places and comments about these places because for the similarity of the names. This lead to conflicting comments like,"the Chinese food is great," and ," the PI moron strikes again," which are comment about two different places but posted on a bowling alleys comment page. Also the Seattle PI which is a local newspaper which has a link on the Google supported blog has been rerouted to display a page about a west Seattle killer responsible for slayings in Seattle having mental problems instead of the homepage of the newspaper. Google has to get on this problem and rectify the issues in their programming or it could get ugly. 

Companies' Use of Blog Posts

Realities of Social Media Data Mining

People who post entries on social networking sites are often unaware of how this information may be used by companies. Oftentimes, users of social networking sites feel the need to broadcast everything that happens to them. Some users feel safer by having a private profile. Despite having a "private profile", companies can still show advertisements on users' Facebook pages. This is quite an improvement from companies asking customers to fill out surveys on paper or giving surveys on the phone. Even with a private profile, a user will still "like" companies' Facebook pages and leave comments on these pages. The reason for this is by posting information to public pages, it gives the companies the right to use your information. Once companies receive information from users, they may use this information to increase revenues.

Target Targeting Pregnant Women

Target has specific ways of tracking when a women is likely pregnant. They data mine information. Target looks at specific transactions that if purchased together can indicate that a women is pregnant. If Target assumes that a women is pregnant coupons will be sent to the customers house at an expense and habit forming period of her life according to the article. Target even exposed a girls pregnancy. This was done once at Target when coupons were sent out to a man's house about baby clothes, cribs, etc. The customer arrived at Target store angry and upset because he says Target sent his daughter coupons about baby items and that is encouraging her to get pregnant. The manager was completely unaware of what was going on, but the mailer was addressed to the customers daughter, but the manager apologized on more than one occasion. Later on the man called Target back and apologized because he was unaware that his daughter was pregnant and this happened about a month ago. The primary question to ask is was Target doing an ethical act by data mining this certain customer purchasing information?

Source: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-16/strategy/31065696_1_pregnant-woman-coupons-target

Data Mining Is Finally Seen In A Good Way

Many bad things has been said about data mining and the biggest one is privacy. Many are concerned that data mining invades the privacy of individuals and by doing this certain people can access individuals personal information such as a bank account statement. According to the article data mining might be seen in a good way because it will pry loose consumer information and organize it in a way that helps individuals make smarter money decisions. Along with this information banks will be able to understand the needs of their customers better and individuals will be able to make smart money decisions. The exposure of certain personal information can increase the financial education effort. An example of data mining can be seen in a good light happened in California where three utilities disclosed detailed energy consumption records and many could download this to view their consumption. One customer downloaded her data and discovered that her daughter was taking long showers and the showers required lots of water.The utility bill decreased once her daughter stopped taking long showers. Since data is already made available by the government there is a huge problem with getting banks to go along with this. Banks are concerned with identity theft and hackers being exposed to consumers information, so why go along with this on-going debate?

Source: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/03/06/privacy-heres-how-data-mining-might-actually-help-consumers/



Department of defense and data mining

Source:http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/04/05/dod-considers-illegal-data-mining-part-of-capital-crime/

 This blog post suggest that data mining might be able to allow the department of defense to prove intent on various crimes committed by Bradley Manning. It mentions a post to Wikipedia by Bradley Manning leaking what the government considers critical documents. This post included a quote from another article,"  Accused WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning installed and used unauthorized “data-mining software” on his SIPRnet workstation during the time he allegedly siphoned hundreds of thousands of documents off that classified network, the Army said Friday in response to inquiries from Threat Level.

Manning’s use of unauthorized software was the basis of two allegations filed against him this year in his pending court martial, but the charge sheet listing those allegations was silent on the nature of that software.

On Friday, an Army spokeswoman clarified the charges. “The allegations … refer to data-mining software,” spokeswoman Shaunteh Kelly wrote in an e-mail. “Identifying at this point the specific software program used may potentially compromise the ongoing criminal investigation.”

[snip]

If Manning installed data-mining software on his SIPRnet workstation, that could potentially strengthen the government’s case against the alleged leaker.,"

 The agency is still creating its case for this matter, anyway this was an interesting way data mining was used though since it was illegal so it's kinda a downer.