Tenth International Conference on Data Mining, Detection, Protection and Security
27 - 29 May, 2009Royal Mare Village, Crete
Overview & Opening Address
The 10th International Conference on Data Mining, Protection, Detection and other Security Technologies took place recently in Crete, Greece, co-organised by the COPPE at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) in the UK.The meeting was chaired by Dr Alessandro Zanasi of TEMIS Italia, Professor Nelson Ebecken of COPPE and Professor Carlos Brebbia of WIT.
The conference series started in Rio de Janeiro in 1998, followed by the 2000 meeting in Cambridge, UK; the third in Bologna in 2002; the 2003 Conference in Rio again; 2004 in Malaga; 2005 in Skiathos, Greece; Prague in 2006; 2007 at the WIT campus in the New Forest and the 2008 meeting in Cádiz.
The conference provides a platform to discuss the theory and applications of data mining, with emphasis on real applications, image search and processing, complex networks, knowledge discovery and new analysis in safety and security are, for example, important research areas of renewed and expanding interest.
New areas of data mining application have gradually moved to textual data mining (text mining) and applications to the Web (web mining). Recently the ‘explosion’ of YouTube and Facebook utilization, for instance, has pointed out the importance of data mining to video (video mining). In this way, the principal areas of application now vary from ‘The Voice of Customers’ (marketing) to ‘Intelligence for National Security’. The Mumbai attacks illustrate that data mining applied to video could represent a way of promoting terrorist actions. All this shows the growing importance of data mining in our society with the result of it becoming more pervasive.The conference was opened by Professor Carlos Brebbia who referred to the importance of this type of meeting for the objectives of WIT, to act as a medium for knowledge transfer covering a wide range of disciplines. Professor Brebbia particularly mentioned the need for physical sciences to communicate with humanities and other important areas of human endeavour. The current problems of society will not be solved without effective transdisciplinary work.
Professor Brebbia also described some of the activities taking place at Ashurst Lodge, the Wessex Institute of Technology campus, including the research carried out on behalf of international organisations, research councils and industry. The particular area of WIT’s expertise, computer simulation, can be applied to solve an ever-expanding range of problems.
Conference Sessions
The conference topics were classified in the following sections:- Text mining and text analytics
- Data mining applications
- Data mining methods
Invited Presentations
There were a number of 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
The proceedings of Data Mining X 350pp (Print ISBN: 1-84564-184-9; Online ISBN 1-84564-361-4; Print ISSN 1746-4463) are available in hard back from WIT Press priced at £79/US$138/€98. Orders can be placed by telephone: +44 (0) 238 029 3223, fax: +44 (0) 238 029 2853, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via the WIT Press web site at www.witpress.com.Papers from the conference will also be hosted online at the WIT eLibrary as Volume 42 of WIT Transactions on Information and Communication Technologies (Online ISSN: 1743-3517). For more details visit the WIT eLibrary at http://library.witpress.com.
Wessex Institute