The system's power lies in its ability to restructure information. By Design Software created at USC extends the reach of human intuition into the vastness of modern databases. GKIS plans to use the DataCrystal software to enable subscribers to its Global Environmental Technology Net-work to make better use of data in United Nations and other databases. Until now, data-mining software has taken the form of tool boxes of search tools, which experts could use to ask various questions. The software even screens such patterns to eliminate uninteresting ones.
Data mining is an outgrowth of the advances in record-keeping made possible by computers.
A computer manufacturer's database keeps tabs on every chip it manufactures, from raw materials to tested final product - both those that pass the test and those that fail. DataCrystal has been tested on databases such as these, and others. It's been shown, over and over, that these huge databases contain regularities that weren't known to be there - clues to why a customer bought a certain item or why a chip that failed the test was defective. We want to be able to find ways to look for these regularities. Searching for metapatterns is a systematic way to look for new regularities by restructuring the information stored in relational computer databases.