Cognitive Biases exploited by Spammers and Phishers

"Keep Walking"

Since they day you arrive on this planet, you are programmed into accepting reality as good and bad.

Beautiful people good. Ugly people not good.

Fellow countrymen good. Fellow earthling not so good.

Same religion is good. Different religion is awkward.

These cognitive biases are exploited in social media in the following manner-

1) Same Name Bias- You like people of the same name as you. or people who remind you of your brothers name. or uncles name.

All that information is already known. Esp true on Linkedin.

2) Same Orientation Bias- People tend to react better to photos considered attractive of opposite sex / opposite preference. Especially true on Twitter and Facebook.

3) Nationality Bias- Israeli Americans tend to respond better to Jewish looking phishers who claim to be from Israel but are not. Ditto for Indians- Arabs etc. E|sp true on Linkedin and Facebook.

You are positively biased to people of same country or of friendly nation states and will likely accept invites/friend/poke

4) Same organization/ alumni bias- People at end of phishing attack will have higher response rate if proxy identity claims familiarity with organizations or schools attended. Especially true on Facebook and Linkedin.

5) Same interests/movies/books bias- Your likely response rate is higher to someone who has seen your profile page on Facebook for interests, and checked the RSS stream of your tweets for stuff you like.

Bias is just maths. Period.

Tom Davenport to Keynote at PAW New York

Unidentified building, Babson College - IMG 0443
Image via Wikipedia

message from Predictive Analytics World. If you are NY based you may want to drop in and listen.———————————————————————————-Tom Davenport to Keynote at
Predictive Analytics World New York

Take advantage of Super Early Bird Pricing by May 20th and recognize savings of $400. Additional savings when you bring the team*

Announcing Tom Davenport Keynote:
Thomas Davenport Every Day Analytics:
Making Leading Edge Commonplace
Thomas Davenport
President’s Distinguished Prof, Babson College
Author, Competing on Analytics & Analytics at Work

Join your peers October 17-21, 2011 at the Hilton New York for Predictive Analytics World, the business event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today’s commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors.

PAW NYC
 promises to once again break records as the biggest cross-vendor predictive analytics event ever. The conference program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote addresses from Thomas Davenport, author of Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, and PAW Program Chair Eric Siegel, plus special sessions from industry heavy-weights Usama Fayyad and John Elder.

RAVE REVIEWS:I came to PAW because it provides case studies relevant to my industry. It has lived up to the expectation and I think it’s the best analytics conference I’ve ever attended!

Shaohua Zhang, Senior Data Mining Analyst
Rogers Telecommunications

Hands down, best applied analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I’ve never been able to say that after any conference I’ve attended before!

Jon Francis, Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

PAW NYC’s agenda covers black box trading, churn modeling, crowdsourcing, demand forecasting, ensemble models, fraud detection, healthcare, insurance applications, law enforcement, litigation, market mix modeling, mobile analytics, online marketing, risk management, social data, supply chain management, targeting direct marketing, uplift modeling (net lift), and other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.


Take advantage of Super Early Bird Pricing and realize
$400 in savings before May 20, 2011.

Note:  Each additional attendee from the same company registered at the same time receives an extra $200 off the Conference Pass.

Register Now!


eMetrics New York

Predictive Analytics World Conference –New York City and London, UK

Please use the following code  to get a 15% discount on the 2 Day Conference Pass:  AJAYNY11.

Predictive Analytics World Conference –New York City and London, UK

October 17-21, 2011 – New York City, NY (pawcon.com/nyc)
Nov 30 – Dec 1, 2011 – London, UK (pawcon.com/london)

Predictive Analytics World (pawcon.com) is the business-focused event for predictive analytics
professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today’s commercial deployment of
predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors. The conference delivers case
studies, expertise, and resources to achieve two objectives:

1) Bigger wins: Strengthen the business impact delivered by predictive analytics

2) Broader capabilities: Establish new opportunities with predictive analytics

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. The leading
enterprises have signed up to tell their stories, so you can hear from the horse’s mouth precisely how
Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what
kind of business impact it delivers.

PAW NEW YORK CITY 2011

PAW’s NYC program is the richest and most diverse yet, featuring over 40 sessions across three tracks
– including both X and Y tracks, and an “Expert/Practitioner” track — so you can witness how predictive
analytics is applied at major companies.

PAW NYC’s agenda covers hot topics and advanced methods such as ensemble models, social data,
search marketing, crowdsourcing, blackbox trading, fraud detection, risk management, survey analysis,
and other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

WORKSHOPS: PAW NYC also features five full-day pre- and post-conference workshops that
complement the core conference program. Workshop agendas include advanced predictive modeling
methods, hands-on training, an intro to R (the open source analytics system), and enterprise decision
management.

For more see http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/newyork/2011/

PAW LONDON 2011

PAW London’s agenda covers hot topics and advanced methods such as risk management, uplift
(incremental lift) modeling, open source analytics, and crowdsourcing data mining. Case study
presentations cover campaign targeting, churn modeling, next-best-offer, selecting marketing channels,
global analytics deployment, email marketing, HR candidate search, and other innovative applications
that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

Join PAW and access the best keynotes, sessions, workshops, exposition, expert panel, live demos,
networking coffee breaks, reception, birds-of-a-feather lunches, brand-name enterprise leaders, and

industry heavyweights in the business.

For more see http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/london

CROSS-INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across
verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high
technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, social gaming, retail and telecommunications

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response
modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online
marketing optimization, human resource decision-making, law enforcement, sales forecasting, and
credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors? No matter how you use predictive analytics, the
story is the same: Predicatively scoring customers optimizes business performance. Predictive analytics
initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project
overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

RAVE REVIEWS:

“Hands down, best applied, analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge
predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work
immediately. I’ve never been able to say that after any conference I’ve attended before!”

Jon Francis
Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

Read more: Articles and blog entries about PAW can be found at http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/
pressroom.php

VENDORS. Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and service. Discover the best
predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs – learn what they do and see how they
compare

COLLEAGUES. Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues. Exchange
experiences over lunch, coffee breaks and the conference reception connecting with those professionals
who face the same challenges as you.

GET STARTED. If you’re new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways
to position it at your organization, there’s no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics
World. See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the
experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information:
http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com

View videos of PAW Washington DC, Oct 2010 — now available on-demand:
http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/online-video.php

What is predictive analytics? See the Predictive Analytics Guide:
http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/predictive_analytics.php

If you’d like our informative event updates, sign up at:
http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/signup-us.php

To sign up for the PAW group on LinkedIn, see:
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1005097

For inquiries e-mail regsupport@risingmedia.com or call (717) 798-3495.

Oracle launches XBRL extension for financial domains

What is XBRL and how does it work?

http://www.xbrl.org/HowXBRLWorks/

How XBRL Works
XBRL is a member of the family of languages based on XML, or Extensible Markup Language, which is a standard for the electronic exchange of data between businesses and on the internet.  Under XML, identifying tags are applied to items of data so that they can be processed efficiently by computer software.

XBRL is a powerful and flexible version of XML which has been defined specifically to meet the requirements of business and financial information.  It enables unique identifying tags to be applied to items of financial data, such as ‘net profit’.  However, these are more than simple identifiers.  They provide a range of information about the item, such as whether it is a monetary item, percentage or fraction.  XBRL allows labels in any language to be applied to items, as well as accounting references or other subsidiary information.

XBRL can show how items are related to one another.  It can thus represent how they are calculated.  It can also identify whether they fall into particular groupings for organisational or presentational purposes.  Most importantly, XBRL is easily extensible, so companies and other organisations can adapt it to meet a variety of special requirements.

The rich and powerful structure of XBRL allows very efficient handling of business data by computer software.  It supports all the standard tasks involved in compiling, storing and using business data.  Such information can be converted into XBRL by suitable mapping processes or generated in XBRL by software.  It can then be searched, selected, exchanged or analysed by computer, or published for ordinary viewing.

also see

http://www.xbrl.org/Example1/

 

 

 

and from-

http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/xbrlextension-354972.html?msgid=3-3856862107

With more than 7,000 new U.S. companies facing extensible business reporting language (XBRL) filing mandates in 2011, Oracle has released a free XBRL extension on top of the latest release of Oracle Database.

Oracle’s XBRL extension leverages Oracle Database 11g Release 2 XML to manage the collection, validation, storage, and analysis of XBRL data. It enables organizations to create one or more back-end XBRL repositories based on Oracle Database, providing secure XBRL storage and query-ability with a set of XBRL-specific services.

In addition, the extension integrates easily with Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition to provide analytics, plus interactive development environments (IDEs) and design tools for creating and editing XBRL taxonomies.

The Other Side of XBRL
“While the XBRL mandate continues to grow, the feedback we keep hearing from the ‘other side’ of XRBL—regulators, academics, financial analysts, and investors—is that they lack sufficient tools and historic data to leverage the full potential of XBRL,” says John O’Rourke, vice president of product marketing, Oracle.

However, O’Rourke says this is quickly changing as XBRL mandates enter their third year—and more and more companies have to comply. While the new extension should be attractive to organizations that produce XBRL filings, O’Rourke expects it will prove particularly valuable to regulators, stock exchanges, universities, and other organizations that need to collect, analyze, and disseminate XBRL-based filings.

Outsourcing, a Bolt-on Solution, or Integrated XBRL Tagging
Until recently, reporting organizations had to choose between expensive third-party outsourcing or manual, in-house tagging with bolt-on solutions— both of which introduce the possibility of error.

In response, Oracle launched Oracle Hyperion Disclosure Management, which provides an XBRL tagging solution that is integrated with the financial close and reporting process for fast and reliable XBRL report submission—without relying on third-party providers. The solution enables organizations to

  • Author regulatory filings in Microsoft Office and “hot link” them directly to financial reporting systems so they can be easily updated
  • Graphically perform XBRL tagging at several levels—within Microsoft Office, within EPM system reports, or in the data source metadata
  • Modify or extend XBRL taxonomies before the mapping process, as well as set up multiple taxonomies
  • Create and validate final XBRL instance documents before submission

 

It's a code code summer

East-German pupils ("Junge Pioniere"...
Image via Wikipedia

and soc is back!

also expecting some #Rstats entries (open source!)

from https://code.google.com/soc/

Google Summer of Code 2011

Visit the Google Summer of Code 2011 site for more details about the program this year.

For a detailed timeline and further information about the program, review our Frequently Asked Questions.

About Google Summer of Code

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together over 4500 successful student participants and over 3000 mentors from over 100 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. Through Google Summer of Code, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.

To learn more about the program, peruse our 2011 Frequently Asked Questions page. You can also subscribe to the Google Open Source Blog or the Google Summer of Code Discussion Group to keep abreast of the latest announcements.

Participating in Google Summer of Code

For those of you who would like to participate in the program, there are many resources available for you to learn more. Check out the information pages from the 20052006200720082009, and 2010 instances of the program to get a better sense of which projects have participated as mentoring organizations in Google Summer of Code each year. If you are interested in a particular mentoring organization, just click on its name and you’ll find more information about the project, a summary of their students’ work and actual source code produced by student participants. You may also find the program Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pages for each year to be useful. Finally, check out all the great content and advice on participation produced by the community, for the community, on our program wiki.

If you don’t find what you need in the documentation, you can always ask questions on our program discussion list or the program IRC channel, #gsoc on Freenode.

 

IBM and Revolution team to create new in-database R

From the Press Release at http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/news-events/news-room/2011/revolution-analytics-netezza-partnership.php

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will work together to create a version of Revolution’s software that takes advantage of IBM Netezza’s i-class technology so that Revolution R Enterprise can run in-database in an optimal fashion.

About IBM

For information about IBM Netezza, please visit: http://www.netezza.com.
For Information on IBM Information Management, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/software/data/information-on-demand/
For information on IBM Business Analytics, please visit the online press kit: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27163.wss
Follow IBM and Analytics on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ibmbizanalytics
Follow IBM analytics on Tumblr: http://smarterplanet.tumblr.com/tagged/new_intelligence
IBM YouTube Analytics Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics
For information on IBM Smarter Systems: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/smarter/

About Revolution Analytics

Revolution Analytics is the leading commercial provider of software and services based on the open source R project for statistical computing.  Led by predictive analytics pioneer Norman Nie, the company brings high performance, productivity and enterprise readiness to R, the most powerful statistics language in the world. The company’s flagship Revolution R product is designed to meet the production needs of large organizations in industries such as finance, life sciences, retail, manufacturing and media.  Used by over 2 million analysts in academia and at cutting-edge companies such as Google, Bank of America and Acxiom, R has emerged as the standard of innovation in statistical analysis. Revolution Analytics is committed to fostering the continued growth of the R community through sponsorship of the Inside-R.org community site, funding worldwide R user groups and offers free licenses of Revolution R Enterprise to everyone in academia.


Netezza, an IBM Company, is the global leader in data warehouse, analytic and monitoring appliances that dramatically simplify high-performance analytics across an extended enterprise. IBM Netezza’s technology enables organizations to process enormous amounts of captured data at exceptional speed, providing a significant competitive and operational advantage in today’s data-intensive industries, including digital media, energy, financial services, government, health and life sciences, retail and telecommunications.

The IBM Netezza TwinFin® appliance is built specifically to analyze petabytes of detailed data significantly faster than existing data warehouse options, and at a much lower total cost of ownership. It stores, filters and processes terabytes of records within a single unit, analyzing only the relevant information for each query.

Using Revolution R Enterprise & Netezza Together

Revolution Analytics and IBM Netezza have announced a partnership to integrate Revolution R Enterprise and the IBM Netezza TwinFin  Data Warehouse Appliance. For the first time, customers seeking to run high performance and full-scale predictive analytics from within a data warehouse platform will be able to directly leverage the power of the open source R statistics language. The companies are working together to create a version of Revolution’s software that takes advantage of IBM Netezza’s i-class technology so that Revolution R Enterprise can run in-database in an optimal fashion.

This partnership integrates Revolution R Enterprise with IBM Netezza’s high performance data warehouse and advanced analytics platform to help organizations combat the challenges that arise as complexity and the scale of data grow.  By moving the analytics processing next to the data, this integration will minimize data movement – a significant bottleneck, especially when dealing with “Big Data”.  It will deliver high performance on large scale data, while leveraging the latest innovations in analytics.

With Revolution R Enterprise for IBM Netezza, advanced R computations are available for rapid analysis of hundreds of terabyte-class data volumes — and can deliver 10-100x performance improvements at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional analytics vendors.

Additional Resources


Pentaho and R: working together

open_source_communism
Image by jagelado via Flickr

I interview Pentaho Co-founder here at https://decisionstats.com/2010/11/14/pentaho/

and recently became aware of the R Pentaho integration.

“R” is a popular open source statistical and analytical language that academics and commercial organizations alike have used for years to get maximum insight out of information using advanced analytic techniques. In this twelve-minute video, David Reinke from Pentaho Certified Partner OpenBI provides an overview of R, as well as a demonstration of integration between R and Pentaho.

http://www.pentaho.com/products/demos/r_project_with_pentaho/

or http://www.pentaho.com/products/demos/showNtell.php

Related-

M.S. in Applied Statistics

http://www.information-management.com/blogs/analytics_business_intelligence_BI_statistics-10019474-1.html

R and BI – Integrating R with Open Source BusinessIntelligence Platforms Pentaho and Jaspersoft

http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2010/abstracts/Reinke+Miller.pdf

Web development with R

http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2010/slides/Ooms.pdf

In-database analytics with R

http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2010/slides/Hess+Chambers_1.pdf

R role in Business Intelligence Software Architecture

http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2010/slides/Colombo+Ronzoni+Fontana.pdf