UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2017/2018
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA
ANALYTICS
MDA 5301: LOGIC SENSE MAKING AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
DATE: NOVEMBER, 2017 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE
Business intelligence and analytics (BIA) is about the development of technologies, systems,
practices, and applications to analyze critical business data so as to gain new insights about
business and markets.
a) How does this compare with the traditional data mining?
(2 Marks)
b) Big Data analytics has emerged as an interesting area in BIA. What are the key concepts
involved? Hadoop is one of the tools that have been used in this area, briefly explain its
main components.
(6 Marks)
c) Explain the following terms as used in Logic:
i. Tautology
ii. Satisfiability
iii. Completeness
(3 Marks)
d) Use a truth table to test the validity of the following sentence in propositional logic:
(2 Marks)
f) Knowledge representation is a core concept in knowledge based systems. Describe the
following properties that should be possessed by a knowledge representation system.
i. Representational adequacy
ii. Inferential adequacy
iii. Inferential efficiency
iv. Acquisition efficiency
(4 Marks)
QUESTION TWO
You are required to come with a Prolog program for an extended family. It stores basic facts
about the individuals that are part of the extended family, and some of the basic relationships
between individuals in that family. It should also have rules that allow the derivation of new
knowledge from the knowledge base. Below is a partial listing for a knowledge base on family
relationships.
gender (male or female)
age (in years)
height (in inches, feet, or centimeters)
mother’s father;
brother’s sister;
husband’s wife.
You may add other properties that you find relevant or interesting (e.g. weight, hair color, odd
habits …). You can also add other relationships such as fiancé, friend, business partner,etc., but it
is probably better to keep it simple. Your family should span at least 15 individuals over three or
more generations; if necessary, you can add fictional individuals. Each individual must have at
least one relationship, and on average each individual must have at least two instantiated
properties.
(15 Marks)
QUESTION THREE
a) What is customer analytics about? Detail at least one approach that can be used to achieve
the goals of customer segmentation.
(7 Marks)
b) Simulation methods are considered important in business intelligence. Using a suitable
example show why and how simulation can be used in BI.
(8 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR
a) Predictive modelling is a key aspect in business intelligence. Using a suitable illustrative
example, explain the key concepts and possible technique that can be used to achieve the
same.
(7 Marks)
b) Text mining is becoming increasingly important in BI. What are the key concepts involved
and by using an illustrative example, detail a possible technique that can be used for text
mining in a given area of application.
(8 Marks)
