Thought this might be of interest to some of you in the Puget Sound area. .. Blanc

NORTHWEST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FORUM

WHEN: Monday, November 17th, 1997. No-host dinner: 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. Social hour: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Training: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

WHERE: The College Club, 5th Avenue & Madison Street, in Seattle. (Directions later in this notice.)

TOPIC: Data Mining and KDD: An Introductory Overview

SPEAKER: Usama M. Fayyad, Ph.D., Microsoft Research

COST: Public $10, NaiF members free. Complimentary parking until 9 p.m. for all attendees in the College Club garage.

ABSTRACT

Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining are concerned with the extraction of high-level information (knowledge) from low-level data (usually stored in large databases). Dr. Fayyad will give an overview of this rapidly growing area, define the goals, present motivation, and give a high-level definition of the KDD Process and how it relates to Data Mining. He will then focus on data mining methods. These methods have their origins in statistics, pattern recognition, learning, visualization, databases, and parallel computing. Basic coverage of a sampling of methods will be provided to give a feel for what the methods are about and how they are used.

He will outline the research challenges and opportunities posed by the problem of extracting models from massive data sets (i.e., much larger than main memory). Operating under such scalability constraints poses interesting problems for how models can be built and what methods are practical. He will use an application in astronomy, done at JPL/Caltech, to motivate the need for dealing with large databases, to illustrate problems of classification and clustering with verylarge data sets, and to illustrate how these techniques can offer powerful novel solutions to significant problems.

BIOGRAPHY

Usama Fayyad is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research (http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/dtg/fayyad) <http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/dtg/fayyad)> . After receiving the Ph.D. degree in 1991, he joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, until 1996. At JPL, he headed the Machine Learning Systems Group where he developed data mining systems for automated science data analysis. He remains affiliated with JPL as a Distinguished Visiting Scientist. Dr. Fayyad received the 1993 JPL Lew Allen Award for Excellence in Research, and the 1994 NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal. He was program co-chair of KDD-94 and KDD-95 (the First International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining). He was general chair of KDD-96, is editor-in-chief of the journal "Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery," and co-editor of the new MIT Press book (1996) "Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining." His research interests include knowledge discovery in large databases, data mining, machine learning, statistical pattern recognition, and clustering.

DINNER & AI

NaiF members and non-members are invited to come early and order your own dinner from the College Club's delicious and economical menu. The College Club offers free beer and some soft drink selections to Club members and their guests (that includes all NaiF program participants) during their happy hour" from 5 to 7 p.m. Why not come directly from work (please arrive by 5:30 p.m.) and join the NaiF Board, NaiF members and friends in a great dinner before the evening program? To aid in their planning, the College Club requires a count of the NaiF dinner participants. R.S.V.P. for the dinner only to Dave Ault (DAAult@Brigadoon.com <mailto:DAAult@Brigadoon.com> , or 206-783-2917) by Noon on Wednesday, November 12th, 1997.

SOCIAL HOUR

Come early (or join us after dinner) and network with other AI professionals and enthusiasts during our social hour from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. NaiF provides complimentary coffee and sodas during the social hour and program presentation.

DIRECTIONS TO COLLEGE CLUB

FROM THE SOUTH - * Take the Madison Street exit from I-5. * Turn left (west) at the light onto Madison St. * Turn left (south) at the second light onto 5th Avenue. * Turn left immediately into the garage under the College Club.

FROM THE NORTH -

* Take the Union Street exit from I-5. * Turn left (south) onto 5th Avenue. * After Madison St. turn left into garage under the College Club.

NaiF BOARD & OFFICERS

Dave Ault, Ph.D. Frank Christopherson, Ph.D. Paul Gianattasio (President) Robin Gianattasio (Secretary) Al Leichner, C.P.A. (Treasurer) Rae Mackay Dan Mahler (Vice President) Mike Michaels, Ph.D. Philip Murphy, Ph.D. Brian Weisbrod

NaiF ACTIVITIES

* To volunteer for NaiF activities please contact NaiF President Paul Gianattasio at <Topper@Halcyon.com <mailto:Topper@Halcyon.com> >. * NaiF gives AI practitioners a forum to share their experiences and results. Interested? Contact Program Director Dr. Dave Ault at <DAAult@Brigadoon.com <mailto:DAAult@Brigadoon.com> >.

For additional information on NaiF's activities please connect to our WWW Web Site.

CONTACTING NaiF

P.O. Box 181 Bellevue, WA, 98009-0181

World Wide Web Site: http://www.halcyon.com/topper/naif.htm <http://www.halcyon.com/topper/naif.htm> If you know of others who would like to be included on NaiF's e-mail distribution list, with their permission, please forward their name and e-mail address to the sender of this message. David A. Ault, Ph.D. <DAAult@Brigadoon.com <mailto:DAAult@Brigadoon.com> > P.O. Box 31864 Seattle, WA 98103-1864 (206) 783-2917