This book includes a spectrum of concepts, such as performance, productivity, operations research, econometrics, and data science, for the practically and theoretically important areas of ‘productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis’ and ‘data science/big data’. Data science is defined as the collection of scientific methods, processes, and systems dedicated to extracting knowledge or insights from data and it develops on concepts from various domains, containing mathematics and statistical methods, operations research, machine learning, computer programming, pattern recognition, and data visualisation, among others. Examples of data science techniques include linear and logistic regressions, decision trees, Naïve Bayesian classifier, principal component analysis, neural networks, predictive modelling, deep learning, text analysis, survival analysis, and so on, all of which allow using the data to make more intelligent decisions. On the other hand, it is without a doubt that nowadays the amount of data is exponentially increasing, and analysing large data sets has become a key basis of competition and innovation, underpinning new waves of productivity growth. This book aims to bring a fresh look onto the various ways that data science techniques could unleash value and drive productivity from these mountains of data. Researchers working in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis will benefit from learning about the tools available in data science/big data that can be used in their current research analyses and endeavours. The data scientists, on the other hand, will also get benefit from learning about the plethora of applications available in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis.

Data science is a multi-disciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured (labeled) and unstructured (unlabeled) data. It is the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a necessity of the future to make things easier and more productive. In simple terms, data science is the discovery of data or uncovering hidden patterns (such as complex behaviors, trends, and inferences) from data. Moreover, Big Data analytics/data analytics are the analysis mechanisms used in data science by data scientists. Several tools, such as Hadoop, R, etc., are used to analyze this large amount of data to predict valuable information and for decision-making. Note that structured data can be easily analyzed by efficient (available) business intelligence tools, while most of the data (80% of data by 2020) is in an unstructured form that requires advanced analytics tools. But while analyzing this data, we face several concerns, such as complexity, scalability, privacy leaks, and trust issues. Data science helps us to extract meaningful information or insights from unstructured or complex or large amounts of data (available or stored virtually in the cloud). Data Science and Data Analytics: Opportunities and Challenges covers all possible areas, applications with arising serious concerns, and challenges in this emerging field in detail with a comparative analysis/taxonomy. FEATURES Gives the concept of data science, tools, and algorithms that exist for many useful applications Provides many challenges and opportunities in data science and data analytics that help researchers to identify research gaps or problems Identifies many areas and uses of data science in the smart era Applies data science to agriculture, healthcare, graph mining, education, security, etc. Academicians, data scientists, and stockbrokers from industry/business will find this book useful for designing optimal strategies to enhance their firm’s productivity.

This book explores the novel uses and potentials of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under big data. These areas are of widespread interest to researchers and practitioners alike. Considering the vast literature on DEA, one could say that DEA has been and continues to be, a widely used technique both in performance and productivity measurement, having covered a plethora of challenges and debates within the modelling framework.

Introduction to Data Science: Data Analysis and Prediction Algorithms with R introduces concepts and skills that can help you tackle real-world data analysis challenges. It covers concepts from probability, statistical inference, linear regression, and machine learning. It also helps you develop skills such as R programming, data wrangling, data visualization, predictive algorithm building, file organization with UNIX/Linux shell, version control with Git and GitHub, and reproducible document preparation. This book is a textbook for a first course in data science. No previous knowledge of R is necessary, although some experience with programming may be helpful. The book is divided into six parts: R, data visualization, statistics with R, data wrangling, machine learning, and productivity tools. Each part has several chapters meant to be presented as one lecture. The author uses motivating case studies that realistically mimic a data scientist’s experience. He starts by asking specific questions and answers these through data analysis so concepts are learned as a means to answering the questions. Examples of the case studies included are: US murder rates by state, self-reported student heights, trends in world health and economics, the impact of vaccines on infectious disease rates, the financial crisis of 2007-2008, election forecasting, building a baseball team, image processing of hand-written digits, and movie recommendation systems. The statistical concepts used to answer the case study questions are only briefly introduced, so complementing with a probability and statistics textbook is highly recommended for in-depth understanding of these concepts. If you read and understand the chapters and complete the exercises, you will be prepared to learn the more advanced concepts and skills needed to become an expert.

Written by renowned data science experts Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett, Data Science for Business introduces the fundamental principles of data science, and walks you through the "data-analytic thinking" necessary for extracting useful knowledge and business value from the data you collect. This guide also helps you understand the many data-mining techniques in use today. Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also discover how to think data-analytically, and fully appreciate how data science methods can support business decision-making. Understand how data science fits in your organization—and how you can use it for competitive advantage Treat data as a business asset that requires careful investment if you’re to gain real value Approach business problems data-analytically, using the data-mining process to gather good data in the most appropriate way Learn general concepts for actually extracting knowledge from data Apply data science principles when interviewing data science job candidates

A comprehensive textbook on data analysis for business, applied economics and public policy that uses case studies with real-world data.

This book includes a spectrum of concepts, such as performance, productivity, operations research, econometrics, and data science, for the practically and theoretically important areas of ‘productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis’ and ‘data science/big data’. Data science is defined as the collection of scientific methods, processes, and systems dedicated to extracting knowledge or insights from data and it develops on concepts from various domains, containing mathematics and statistical methods, operations research, machine learning, computer programming, pattern recognition, and data visualisation, among others. Examples of data science techniques include linear and logistic regressions, decision trees, Naïve Bayesian classifier, principal component analysis, neural networks, predictive modelling, deep learning, text analysis, survival analysis, and so on, all of which allow using the data to make more intelligent decisions. On the other hand, it is without a doubt that nowadays the amount of data is exponentially increasing, and analysing large data sets has become a key basis of competition and innovation, underpinning new waves of productivity growth. This book aims to bring a fresh look onto the various ways that data science techniques could unleash value and drive productivity from these mountains of data. Researchers working in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis will benefit from learning about the tools available in data science/big data that can be used in their current research analyses and endeavours. The data scientists, on the other hand, will also get benefit from learning about the plethora of applications available in productivity analysis/data envelopment analysis.

Mining big data requires a deep investment in people and time. How can you be sure you’re building the right models? With this hands-on book, you’ll learn a flexible toolset and methodology for building effective analytics applications with Hadoop. Using lightweight tools such as Python, Apache Pig, and the D3.js library, your team will create an agile environment for exploring data, starting with an example application to mine your own email inboxes. You’ll learn an iterative approach that enables you to quickly change the kind of analysis you’re doing, depending on what the data is telling you. All example code in this book is available as working Heroku apps. Create analytics applications by using the agile big data development methodology Build value from your data in a series of agile sprints, using the data-value stack Gain insight by using several data structures to extract multiple features from a single dataset Visualize data with charts, and expose different aspects through interactive reports Use historical data to predict the future, and translate predictions into action Get feedback from users after each sprint to keep your project on track

Simplify data science infrastructure to give data scientists an efficient path from prototype to production. In Effective Data Science Infrastructure you will learn how to: Design data science infrastructure that boosts productivity Handle compute and orchestration in the cloud Deploy machine learning to production Monitor and manage performance and results Combine cloud-based tools into a cohesive data science environment Develop reproducible data science projects using Metaflow, Conda, and Docker Architect complex applications for multiple teams and large datasets Customize and grow data science infrastructure Effective Data Science Infrastructure: How to make data scientists more productive is a hands-on guide to assembling infrastructure for data science and machine learning applications. It reveals the processes used at Netflix and other data-driven companies to manage their cutting edge data infrastructure. In it, you’ll master scalable techniques for data storage, computation, experiment tracking, and orchestration that are relevant to companies of all shapes and sizes. You’ll learn how you can make data scientists more productive with your existing cloud infrastructure, a stack of open source software, and idiomatic Python. The author is donating proceeds from this book to charities that support women and underrepresented groups in data science. About the technology Growing data science projects from prototype to production requires reliable infrastructure. Using the powerful new techniques and tooling in this book, you can stand up an infrastructure stack that will scale with any organization, from startups to the largest enterprises. About the book Effective Data Science Infrastructure teaches you to build data pipelines and project workflows that will supercharge data scientists and their projects. Based on state-of-the-art tools and concepts that power data operations of Netflix, this book introduces a customizable cloud-based approach to model development and MLOps that you can easily adapt to your company’s specific needs. As you roll out these practical processes, your teams will produce better and faster results when applying data science and machine learning to a wide array of business problems. What's inside Handle compute and orchestration in the cloud Combine cloud-based tools into a cohesive data science environment Develop reproducible data science projects using Metaflow, AWS, and the Python data ecosystem Architect complex applications that require large datasets and models, and a team of data scientists About the reader For infrastructure engineers and engineering-minded data scientists who are familiar with Python. About the author At Netflix, Ville Tuulos designed and built Metaflow, a full-stack framework for data science. Currently, he is the CEO of a startup focusing on data science infrastructure. Table of Contents 1 Introducing data science infrastructure 2 The toolchain of data science 3 Introducing Metaflow 4 Scaling with the compute layer 5 Practicing scalability and performance 6 Going to production 7 Processing data 8 Using and operating models 9 Machine learning with the full stack

Data Science gets thrown around in the press like it'smagic. Major retailers are predicting everything from when theircustomers are pregnant to when they want a new pair of ChuckTaylors. It's a brave new world where seemingly meaningless datacan be transformed into valuable insight to drive smart businessdecisions. But how does one exactly do data science? Do you have to hireone of these priests of the dark arts, the "data scientist," toextract this gold from your data? Nope. Data science is little more than using straight-forward steps toprocess raw data into actionable insight. And in DataSmart, author and data scientist John Foreman will show you howthat's done within the familiar environment of aspreadsheet. Why a spreadsheet? It's comfortable! You get to look at the dataevery step of the way, building confidence as you learn the tricksof the trade. Plus, spreadsheets are a vendor-neutral place tolearn data science without the hype. But don't let the Excel sheets fool you. This is a book forthose serious about learning the analytic techniques, the math andthe magic, behind big data. Each chapter will cover a different technique in aspreadsheet so you can follow along: Mathematical optimization, including non-linear programming andgenetic algorithms Clustering via k-means, spherical k-means, and graphmodularity Data mining in graphs, such as outlier detection Supervised AI through logistic regression, ensemble models, andbag-of-words models Forecasting, seasonal adjustments, and prediction intervalsthrough monte carlo simulation Moving from spreadsheets into the R programming language You get your hands dirty as you work alongside John through eachtechnique. But never fear, the topics are readily applicable andthe author laces humor throughout. You'll even learnwhat a dead squirrel has to do with optimization modeling, whichyou no doubt are dying to know.