Data mining and knowledge discovery in databases have been attracting
a significant amount of research, industry, and media attention of lat
e. What is all the excitement about? This article provides an overview
of this emerging field, clarifying how data mining and knowledge disc
overy in databases are related both to each other and to related field
s, such as machine learning, statistics, and databases. The article me
ntions particular real-world applications, specific data-mining techni
ques, challenges involved in real-world applications of knowledge disc
overy, and current and future research directions in the field.