Get acquainted with a software package that makes the processing and analysis of questionnaires, survey documents, medical records, and information from corporate databases easy
Kirill L. Reznik
DALSolution complements data collection and management systems
How many mouse-clicks does it take to produce a table? In Context Co’s DALSolution - only two. One more click - and a chart is displayed. Three mouse-clicks copy your chart or table to a report. The questions and answers from your survey documents form the language of data management in DALSolution. No technical terms. No “black boxes”. These features save time and make DALSolution easy to work with.
Kirill Reznik, Director of Context Co., Ltd.,
presents DALSolution manual
DALSolution processes and analyzes both paper and digital documents
DALSolution works not only with questionnaires but also with medical records and case histories, scientific measurements records, time series, and genetic sequences.
The software has a modern design and supports all stages of survey processing - from data input and import/export to analysis and report generation. It can be used independently, or as an analytical module within other systems for data collection and management.
Database Integration, Tables and Charts
DALSolution exchanges digital data with many software packages via import/export procedures. Most popular import/export formats are supported: plain text (Windows ANSI, DOS and OS-2/PC-8 encoding tables), MS Access, MS Excel, dbase, Paradox, FoxPro, SPSS. DALSolution also supports convenient manual data entry.
With DALSolution, tables and about a hundred various 2D and 3D charts and diagrams are extremely easy to construct from any document subset.
The “gist” of DALSolution: Analysis of Rules
If one action occurs instead of another, what will happen? When you need to answer this and other similar questions, it is not enough to browse documents, or build tables and charts. You need rules.
DALSolution has been acknowledged not only
in Russia but also in the USA and Europe
Rules are conditional statements of the form “If event A takes place, the resulting event b will be the inevitable consequence.” Rules are used for events forecasting and working out recommendations to achieve the desired results. They can also explain what has happened. Rules are hidden in the data you analyze. You just need to find them. DALSolution finds the rules you need to solve your particular problem.
Example 1. A large wholesale company serving thousands of clients was carrying a heavy debt of unpaid invoices. DALSolution found a “critical day” (Friday), and helped identify the rule:
“If an invoice for any amount between 12.74 and 15 thousand dollars is submitted on Friday, the payment will be substantially delayed with 100% certainty”. After the “risky” invoices were found, company managers started to focus their attention on corresponding transactions, which helped to decrease losses.
Where DALSolution is used
The combination of universality and ease of use makes DALSolution software beneficial for a wide range of users. These users include marketing and analytical divisions of corporations and banks, municipal analytical services, hospitals and medical centers, universities and research units, departments of social services and public health, sociological, marketing, public relations and political consultants.
Users of DALSolution
Medical doctors use DALSolution because rules assist in the creation of diagnoses, drug use instructions, and treatment recommendations.
Example 2. Twenty percent of patients in the “placebo” group recovered, while recovery of patients treated with Drug A was two and a half times greater, 50 percent.
The Student’s test showed that the difference was statistically significant. This type of conclusion is useful for science, but medical practitioners need rules such as: Treatment with drug A leads to recovery under conditions C, D and E, and to complications under conditions F, G, and H. DALSolution helps you find, examine and analyze such rules.
Example 3. DALSolution attracts election campaign consultants because it saves time. The software provides the fast data input from pre-election polling documents, facilitating the analysis and drafting of recommendations on how to chart the direction of the campaign. When time is a critical factor, this approach is beneficial.
DALSolution helps find rules even where their existence is not obvious
In the financial market, this software is commonly used for marketing analysis of the clientele, and there are tasks where the analysis of rules produces unique results. Consider, for example, short-term forecasting of stock prices. The time series of stock prices look like the edge of a saw blade, with teeth showing the price oscillation in time. by looking at price changes, an expert can sometimes detect smooth trends that appear on time intervals with tens or hundreds of observations. However, predicting what will happen tomorrow based on today’s or yesterday’s data is practically impossible. For any two to three day span, the “sawteeth” of prices look completely random. Analysis of a series of examples with DALSolution has shown that the observed price volatility is deceiving. It is difficult to extract non-random regularities from the noise of generally unpredictable oscillations, but they exist, and DALSolution enables you to find them.
Example 4. Within the period from January 1994 to June 1998, the following regularity held for the New York Stock Exchange: “If today the Dow Jones index went down, and the relative increase in the price of General Electric stock was between 0.01031 and 0.01147, then tomorrow General Electric stock price will go up.”
This rule worked in 12 cases out of 13, i.e. with probability 0.92. The problem is in finding the bounds on the stock price dynamics leading to a reliable rule. DALSolution solves this very task. So far, this procedure provides timely assessment for financial analysts. However, it creates the foundation for a tool enabling stock traders on the NYSE floor to develop and use short-term forecasting rules in real time, when minutes and seconds do count. (For more examples see the sidebar “From DALSolution experiences...” on page 3.)
Market segmentation
The analysis of rules helps find clients who prefer certain products or services. Using DALSolution, an investment and insurance company managed to determine groups of potential clients likely to purchase particular insurance packages. Often, neural networks are used to solve such problems. However, the technology behind DALSolution is easier and more understandable. It is transparent in the sense that it does not contain mathematical “black boxes”, and results are easily tested and reproduced.
Independent expert inquiry
A group of independent experts have conducted an analysis of DALSolution’s capabilities for solving marketing problems. The experts have agreed that DALSolution is an extremely powerful tool for solving the following tasks:
- Market segmentation
- Analysis of external factors affecting market conditions
- Risk estimation in market decision-making
- Evaluation of factors influencing market trends
The experts have also noted the following advantages of the software package:
- Only a short time is needed to master the software
- both experienced and novice users adapt to the software with equal ease
The analysis of rules is based on fundamental mathematical studies
behind the apparently simple solutions provided by DALSolution software, there are decades of research carried out at the best research institutes of the former USSR. First prototypes of the package were developed in the Research Institute of Systems Studies in the late 70s. The DAL-related research by Sergey Chesnokov, a Russian scientist, was supported by Academician Stanislav Shatalin (Gorbachev’s economics advisor during Perestroika) and by Academician Leonid Kantorovich, a famous mathematician and a Nobel laureate in economics.
Soon to come
A new version of DALSolution will be released in late 1999. It will provide for joint analysis of several related data sets. This release will introduce a new class of database management systems, combining the advantages of relational databases with the capabilities of the analysis of rules.
The coming versions will include a module for logical analysis of rule systems.
Users of DALSolution
Context plans to develop a series of products that will share the underlying technology but target different market segments, experience levels and classes of tasks. The new products will be aimed primarily on medicine, marketing and sociology. The new tools for Web-based analysis will be provided, as well as a software developers kit for third parties-vendors that will allow them to implement DAL analytical capabilities into their systems.
New markets
The DALSolution software package at CebIT99 represents the newest information technologies from Russia. Since late 1998, DALSolution has been available worldwide, from our partners in Sweden (http://www.itsv.com/itss), the USA (http://www.elzaresearch.com), and Australia (FDavies@tig.com.au).
Kirill L. Reznik is Managing Director of Context Co., Ltd. You may contact him at kirillr@dalsolution.com.
Some Facts About Context Co
Developer of the DALSolution (Determinacy Analysis and Logic Solution) software product line.
Founded in 1989.
Participated in NATO Advanced Study Institute conferences (France 1991, Portugal 1994)
Authorized Microsoft Software Developer (1996)
Management
Managing Director: Kirill L. Reznik
Research Director: Sergey V. Chesnokov
Development platforms and instruments
basic platforms: Intel
Operating systems: Windows 95/98, Windows NT
Development tools and technologies: MS Visual C 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, ActiveX, OLE, ODbC, OLE Db, COM, Web technologies.
Mission
Development and dissemination of comprehensive data processing and analysis tools which meet the expectations of both expert and novice users in various vertical markets
Contact Information
Context Co., Ltd. P.O. box 13, Moscow 117419, Russia
Phone/FAX: +7-095-124-2566, 719-0910
E-mail: context@context.ru
Internet: www.dalsolution.com, http://www.context.ru
The goals of DALSolution development
Our goal was to create an instrument attractive for businesses, management and scientific research. We understood that this was a challenging task, and it could be solved only by relying on original solutions in programming technology, user interfaces, and underlying mathematics. We have managed to succeed, because we possess all three of these components.
Our clients have varying interests, but their tasks are similar. Many are pressured by the difficulty of comprehending statistical techniques. With DALSolution, we now offer the analytical problem solving technology that is transparent, easy to understand, and attractive for users with both engineering and non-technical background.
The strengths of the package
One example: we offer convenient technology that focuses on the manipulation of Dictionaries of variables. Using any spreadsheet software, attempt a side by side comparison of different variable names, or values of text variables. It is difficult. We can do it easily. The technology of manipulating Dictionaries of variables allows us to apply original solutions to common tasks. For example, in DALSolution it is easier to produce tables and charts than in any other package. It is also easier to work with variables allowing for multiple responses, to construct new variables and to analyze document sub-samples. These operations, in one way or another, are implemented in other packages. However, no other software implements the analysis of rules in the same way as DALSolution. In this respect we have no competitors.
Marketing strategy
When your task is not to “apply a particular method”, but to instead achieve a useful result, DALSolution is open to clients’ needs. This is our advantage. Knowing this, we pursue contacts with end users. Our strategy is simple: we advise clients on how they can solve their problems with DALSolution, and this contact, once established, leads to a success rate of nearly 100%. We are further expanding this successful strategy.
In 1999, the DALSolution package is already being distributed in Scandinavian countries, the United States and Australia. We are completing a German version of the package. A Spanish version will be developed in the nearest future.
The DALSolution of 1999-2000 represents a new class of database management systems, combining the advantages of relational databases with the capabilities of rules analysis. Innovations will include: Internet-based analysis of rules, a range of market-specific and task-specific software solutions and toolkits for third parties (system integrators, software developers) that facilitate the inclusion of DAL analytical capabilities in other information systems and packages.
