Tenth International Conference on Data Mining, Detection, Protection and Security

 Overview & Opening Address

 Conference Sessions

• Text mining and text analytics
• Data mining applications
• Data mining methods

 Invited Presentations

• “Text and video mining solutions to national security” by A Zanasi, TEMIS Italia
• “A method for finding minimal sets of features adequately describing discrete information objects” by D Sitnikov, Kharkov State Academy of Culture, Ukraine
• “Mining for ecological thresholds and associations in cytometric data: a coastal management perspective” by N Ebecken, COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 Keynote Address

In his special keynote address, Alessandro Zanasi referred to the importance of data and text mining for the EU, as a member of the EU Security Research Group.  The programme evolved in the last few years as a result of the interest of Europe in protecting itself and remaining competitive in the security field market.  The FP7 Security Programme has a substantial budget (E1,400M) which brings the total to be spent in Europe up to 2014 to a grand total of E3,000M.  The programme is called the European Security Research Programme.  Of particular interest is the part outlining transport security.  The different technology groups involved are:

• Border security
• Infrastructure utilities
• Crisis management
• Anti-terrorism crime
• Corporate security

Dr Zanasi referred to the many opportunities for funding open in the EU and the difficult problems ahead to prevent terrorism.

The conference ended with a discussion on the Future of Data Mining.  Nelson Ebecken pointed out that Data Mining is a well established technology which is now starting to reach a plateau.  Large graph mining has resulted in a new research field and the information for global knowledge discovery is evolving into discovery in real time.  We are living in the time of a new type of science ‘Data Exploratory Science’ with data captured and processed by software, placed in a database with the scientists’ function now to analyse database files, all of it taking place on-line.

The future – Professor Ebecken said – lies on a congruence of technologies, mining scientific databases for information; eScience being the added value for scientific research.  The future lies in online data mining of complex systems.

Professor Zanasi agreed that the technology has evolved as described by Professor Ebecken.  The development presented a large number of new applications, such as those in the area of security, special financial and economic services and other areas of great relevance nowadays.  The future of data mining lies in producing analytical techniques and mining complex systems, all of the processes taking place on-line:

• Monitoring the information
• Considering the complexity of real systems
• Evaluating and upgrading the models
• Extracting the knowledge
• Supporting the decisions

Dmitry Sitnikov added that in his opinion the future also lies in productive analysis rather than descriptive analysis; methods of artificial intelligence rather than only traditional techniques.  The emphasis will be on discovery; an inductive rather than a deductive approach.

Beatriz de Lima from the University of Rio de Janeiro saw that data is becoming more complex and data mining applied in a wide variety of fields.  She thought that we need to develop new algorithms and methodologies to deal with this constant growth.  We need more efficient and robust algorithms, according to de Lima.

 Excursion and Conference Dinner

There were many opportunities for interaction among the participants and a series of social occasions.  A guided tour of Heraklion was organised which ended with dinner in a typical Greek Taverna, renowned for the excellence of its cuisine.  The good food was complemented by the good quality local wines.  The conference dinner consisted of a typical Greek barbeque with an excellent dance group and a musical ensemble.  Participants and their partners were able to demonstrate their skill at Greek dancing with varying degrees of success!

 Publication of Papers