Neural Networks in Data Mining

Companies have been collecting data for decades, building massive data warehouses in which to store it. Even though this data is available, very few companies have been able to realize the actual value stored in it. The question these companies are asking is how to extract this value. The answer is Data mining. There are many technologies available to data mining practitioners, including Artificial Neural Networks, Regression, and Decision Trees. Many practitioners are wary of Neural Networks due to their black box nature, even though they have proven themselves in many situations. This paper is an overview of artificial neural networks and questions their position as a preferred tool by data mining practitioners.