With the ever increasing volume of data, data quality problems abound. Multiple, yet different representations of the same real-world objects in data, duplicates, are one of the most intriguing data quality problems. The effects of such duplicates are detrimental; for instance, bank customers can obtain duplicate identities, inventory levels are monitored incorrectly, catalogs are mailed multiple times to the same household, etc. Automatically detecting duplicates is difficult: First, duplicate representations are usually not identical but slightly differ in their values. Second, in principle all pairs of records should be compared, which is infeasible for large volumes of data. This lecture examines closely the two main components to overcome these difficulties: (i) Similarity measures are used to automatically identify duplicates when comparing two records. Well-chosen similarity measures improve the effectiveness of duplicate detection. (ii) Algorithms are developed to perform on very large volumes of data in search for duplicates. Well-designed algorithms improve the efficiency of duplicate detection. Finally, we discuss methods to evaluate the success of duplicate detection. Table of Contents: Data Cleansing: Introduction and Motivation / Problem Definition / Similarity Functions / Duplicate Detection Algorithms / Evaluating Detection Success / Conclusion and Outlook / Bibliography

Refactoring is gaining momentum amongst the object oriented programming community. It can transform the internal dynamics of applications and has the capacity to transform bad code into good code. This book offers an introduction to refactoring.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes a brilliant literary thriller set in Manhattan that’s “as taut and chilling as anything Hitchcock put on film" (San Francisco Chronicle). “A first-rate cliffhanger.” —The New York Times Book Review Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key-holders. One sunny day, Alice enters the apartment and finds two of the band members shot dead. As the double-murder sends waves of shock through their lives, this group of friends begins to unravel, and dangerous secrets are revealed one by one. When Alice begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, the tension breaks out as it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks. Jane Smiley applies her distinctive rendering of time, place, and the enigmatic intricacies of personal relationships to the twists and turns of suspense. The result is a thriller that will keep readers guessing up to its final, shocking conclusion.

Former FBI and Secret Service agent Kevin Maher describes the intervention that prevented him from following a life of crime and recounts his dangerous career in which he solved homicides, targeted the mafia, and fought in the drug war.

A mysterious illness ... two dead bridge players ... what's going on at Kensington College? On the surface Kensington is a typical small college. But when two players collapse and die during a duplicate bridge game at the faculty club, it soon becomes clear that there is more going on at Kensington than meets the eye.