This article is about a decision engine. For the Babylonian and Summerian god of wisdom, see Adapa

Adapa

Adapa was a Babylonian mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. The story is first attested in the Kassite period .-Roles:...

.

ADAPA is intrinsically a predictive decisioning platform. It combines the power of predictive analytics

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from modeling, machine learning, data mining and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events....

 and business rules to facilitate the tasks of managing and designing automated decisioning systems.

Automated decisions

When first released, ADAPA (Adaptive Decision And Predictive Analytics) was purely a scoring engine, used to produce scores out of statistical model

Statistical model

A statistical model is a formalization of relationships between variables in the form of mathematical equations. A statistical model describes how one or more random variables are related to one or more random variables. The model is statistical as the variables are not deterministically but...

s expressed in PMML (Predictive Model Markup Language) format. With the addition of a rules engine to its core, ADAPA is now able to seamlessly combine rules and predictive models, which enables businesses to manage and design automated decisioning systems. In this way, ADAPA allows for the concretization of Enterprise Decision Management

Enterprise Decision Management

Enterprise decision management, commonly abbreviated "EDM", entails all aspects of managing automated decision design and deployment that an organization uses to manage its interactions with customers, employees and suppliers...

 (EDM) solutions.

PMML support and predictive analytics

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from modeling, machine learning, data mining and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events....

 comprises a series of modeling techniques which can be used to extract relevant patterns present in large amounts of data to better predict the future.

ADAPA is able to generate scores out of a variety of predictive modeling techniques expressed in PMML. PMML provides a standard way for the expression of predictive models. In this way, proprietary issues and incompatibilities are no longer a barrier to the exchange of models between applications.

Currently, ADAPA supports the following PMML elements:

• Decision Trees
  Decision tree learning
  Decision tree learning, used in statistics, data mining and machine learning, uses a decision tree as a predictive model which maps observations about an item to conclusions about the item's target value. More descriptive names for such tree models are classification trees or regression trees...
  
  
• Neural Networks
  Neural Networks
  Neural Networks is the official journal of the three oldest societies dedicated to research in neural networks: International Neural Network Society, European Neural Network Society and Japanese Neural Network Society, published by Elsevier...
  
  
• Clustering Models
• Naive Bayes Classifiers
• Support Vector Machines
• Association rules
• Ruleset Models (flat decision trees)
• Linear and Logistic regression
  Logistic regression
  In statistics, logistic regression is used for prediction of the probability of occurrence of an event by fitting data to a logit function logistic curve. It is a generalized linear model used for binomial regression...
  
   as well as all general regression PMML models:
  • Multinomial Logistic
  • General Linear
  • Ordinal Multinomial
  • Simple Regression
  • Generalized linear model
    Generalized linear model
    In statistics, the generalized linear model is a flexible generalization of ordinary linear regression. The GLM generalizes linear regression by allowing the linear model to be related to the response variable via a link function and by allowing the magnitude of the variance of each measurement to...
    
    
  • Cox Regression Models
• Multiple Models: Model Composition, Ensembles, and Segmentation.

as well as a variety of elements involved in data pre- and post-processing:

• Built-in Functions (logic and arithmetic operators as well as IF-THEN-ELSE)
• Normalization
• Discretization
• Value Mapping
• Custom Functions
• Targets/Scaling
• Outputs
• Model Verification (which in ADAPA can also take the form of a CSV file)

Once a model is uploaded in ADAPA, it can be executed in batch and real-time. ADAPA is a PMML consumer, therefore it is able to execute PMML code exported from tools such as R, SPSS, IBM, SAS, KNIME, KXEN, RapidMiner, etc.

Besides offering a web-based console to manage models and rule sets, ADAPA includes capabilities to test these under its decision and validation framework.

Business rules

Business rules allow for business process and logic to be expressed outside of programming code. With ADAPA, the integration of predictive analytics and rules is seamless. Simply put, ADAPA allows both data-driven and expert knowledge to be combined into a single and concise solution, executed in real-time or in batch-mode.

ADAPA allows for business knowledge to be expressed in simple tabular format. In ADAPA, rules can be used to manage the execution of different predictive models depending on the business context. They can also incorporate scores generated by different predictive models throughout the business process. The acting together of the two technologies has the potential to significantly extend the precision of any decision logic.

ADAPA rules leverage the power of the leading Java open-source rules engine Drools

Drools

Drools is a business rule management system with a forward chaining inference based rules engine, more correctly known as a production rule system, using an enhanced implementation of the Rete algorithm....

 which is supported by a strong community of developers and JBoss, a division of Red Hat

Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

. This fast, highly efficient rules engine has proven its excellence in numerous commercial installations.

All decisions in ADAPA are readily available by the use of Web Services.

PMML Converter

Zementis Inc

Zementis Inc

-The "Zementis" Name:The name Zementis, symbolizing "concrete thoughts", is derived from the German word Zement and the Latin word Mentis and relates to the company's core competence in machine learning and AI....

 (the maker of ADAPA) has released the PMML Converter tool. It allows for users to convert older PMML models (versions 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2) to version 4.0. Besides schema validation, the PMML Converter automatically corrects known issues with PMML code from several sources/vendors. The aim is to successfully validate code in older versions of PMML and convert them to PMML 4.0. Files in PMML 4.0 can also be passed through the converter so that they can be corrected and validated against the 4.0 schema.

The PMML Converter is also embedded in ADAPA itself. And so, if you use ADAPA, there is no need to convert your files, ADAPA will automatically do that for you.

Transformations Generator

PMML provides a variety of data transformations, including value mapping, normalization, and discretization. It also offers several built-in functions as well as arithmetic and logical operators which can be combined to represent complex pre-processing steps. With the Zementis Inc

Zementis Inc

-The "Zementis" Name:The name Zementis, symbolizing "concrete thoughts", is derived from the German word Zement and the Latin word Mentis and relates to the company's core competence in machine learning and AI....

 Transformations Generator tool, one can graphically design a transformation and obtain the respective PMML code. This can then be pasted into an existing PMML file and uploaded in ADAPA.

Software as a Service on the Amazon Cloud

ADAPA predictive analytics is available through the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a central part of Amazon.com's cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services . EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications...

 (Amazon EC2). It provides the first SaaS

Saas

SAAS is an abbreviation for* Social Accountability Accreditation Services* Software as a service * Student Awards Agency for Scotland* Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences* South Australian Ambulance Service...

(Software as a Service) predictive decisioning platform. The user can upload and manage several rule sets as well as models expressed in PMML and score data in real-time through the use of web-service calls (ADAPA will automatically convert older versions of PMML to version 3.2 and correct any known issues from different vendors). ADAPA as a Service empowers people, since it allows for anyone anywhere to deploy and use state of the art data mining models.

ADAPA Add-in for Microsoft Office Excel

To make the process of executing predictive models even simpler, Zementis also offers the ADAPA add-in for Excel 2007 and 2010 (available for free). With the add-in, anyone in the enterprise is able to score data in Excel by executing models previously deployed in the Cloud.

ADAPA allows for real-time data scoring at any time a new event occurs since it can be used from inside any application via Web Service Calls. Excel is just one such application which happens to be a very well known tool (used by many). This is remarkable, since it frees users from having to deal with all the technology required for scoring their data whenever necessary. With the Excel add-in, all one has to do is to select which data records to score (or the columns and rows containing the relevant data) and pressing on the “Score” button in Excel … et voila’ … new predictions are generated automatically for all selected records.

ADAPA Flavors

ADAPA is currently being offered in two ways:

• On the Cloud: launch your own private instances of ADAPA on the Amazon Cloud.
• On Site: ADAPA is also available for deployment on site or on your private cloud.

In-Database Scoring

Built on the heritage of the ADAPA Decision Engine, the Universal PMML Plug-in is a highly optimized, in-database scoring engine
for predictive models, fully supporting the PMML standard. With PMML, the Plug-in delivers a wide range of
predictive analytics for high performance scoring. It shortens time to market for predictive models and empowers
users through instant deployment of predictive models.

Scoring for Hadoop

Zementis and Datameer have partnered to deliver first-ever standards-based execution of predictive analytics on a massive parallel scale. This joint solution combines the Zementis Universal PMML Plug-in for real-time execution of predictive models with the power and scale of Datameer Analytics Solution (DAS), an end-to-end BI solution that includes data source integration, an analytics engine, visualization and dashboarding.

The Universal PMML Plug-in for DAS brings together essential technologies, offering the best combination of open standards and scalability for the application of predictive analytics. The Plug-in fully supports the Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML), the de facto standard for data mining applications, which enables the integration of predictive models from IBM/SPSS, SAS, R, and many more.

External links

• Buying predictive analytics like books - Smart Enough Systems blog on the ADAPA Amazon EC2 offering.
• PMML Converter iGoogle gadget - gadget to convert older versions of PMML to PMML 3.2.
• ADAPA support - blogs providing support for the ADAPA demo and the PMML converter gadgets as well as the paid version of ADAPA - Amazon EC2.
• ADAPA product page - contains information about ADAPA on the Cloud, on Site, and the add-in for Excel.
• Deploy! Newsletter - monthly newsletter containing the latest news on ADAPA and predictive analytics.
• PMML - PMML resources page including examples.
• PMML Tools - PMML Converter and Transformations Generator.
• Videos - on-line video tutorials about ADAPA, Excel add-in, PMML, ...
• Data Mining Group (DMG) - describes PMML, the Predictive Modeling Markup Language, as well as gives information on all the companies currently supporting the standard.
• Drools homepage
• PMML 4.0 is here! - gives a short summary of the new features of the latest release of PMML.
• PMML in Action - PMML book available on Amazon (NEW).
• Zoey tells it all! - YouTube video in which Zoey describes PMML, ADAPA, and Zementis.