anomaly detection

Anomaly detection dilemmas

Finding anomalies/outliers in data is a task that is increasingly getting more attention mainly due to the variety of applications involved. Not that it is a new field of research. Rather, outlier/anomaly detection has been studied by statisticians and computer scientists for a long time. However, there are certain aspects which lack consensus. What’s in a name? The words outlier/anomaly/novelty/extremes are sometimes used to describe the same thing; sometimes for slightly different things.