Analytics enables businesses to increase the efficiency of their activities and ultimately increase their profitability. As a result, it is one of the fastest growing segments of the database industry. There are two usages of the word analytics. The first refers to a set of algorithms and technologies, inspired by data mining, computational statistics, and machine learning, for supporting statistical inference and prediction. The second is equally important: analytical thinking. Analytical thinking is a structured approach to reasoning and decision making based on facts and data.
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Pat Hanrahan (2012) studied this question.