Book excerpt: Data Warehousing and Mining (DWM) is the science of managing and analyzing large datasets and discovering novel patterns and in recent years has emerged as a particularly exciting and industrially relevant area of research. Prodigious amounts of data are now being generated in domains as diverse as market research, functional genomics and pharmaceuticals; intelligently analyzing these data, with the aim of answering crucial questions and helping make informed decisions, is the challenge that lies ahead. The Encyclopedia of Data Warehousing and Mining provides a comprehensive, critical and descriptive examination of concepts, issues, trends, and challenges in this rapidly expanding field of data warehousing and mining (DWM). This encyclopedia consists of more than 350 contributors from 32 countries, 1,800 terms and definitions, and more than 4,400 references. This authoritative publication offers in-depth coverage of evolutions, theories, methodologies, functionalities, and applications of DWM in such interdisciplinary industries as healthcare informatics, artificial intelligence, financial modeling, and applied statistics, making it a single source of knowledge and latest discoveries in the field of DWM.