Explains when to accept the data interpretations of "experts" and when to question, covering such topics as how the college ranking system works, improving fantasy sports teams, and data collection by businesses.

How to make simple sense of complex statistics--from the author of Numbers Rule Your World We live in a world of Big Data--and it's getting bigger every day. Virtually every choice we make hinges on how someone generates data . . . and how someone else interprets it--whether we realize it or not. Where do you send your child for the best education? Big Data. Which airline should you choose to ensure a timely arrival? Big Data. Who will you vote for in the next election? Big Data. The problem is, the more data we have, the more difficult it is to interpret it. From world leaders to average citizens, everyone is prone to making critical decisions based on poor data interpretations. In Numbersense, expert statistician Kaiser Fung explains when you should accept the conclusions of the Big Data "experts"--and when you should say, "Wait . . . what?" He delves deeply into a wide range of topics, offering the answers to important questions, such as: How does the college ranking system really work? Can an obesity measure solve America's biggest healthcare crisis? Should you trust current unemployment data issued by the government? How do you improve your fantasy sports team? Should you worry about businesses that track your data? Don't take for granted statements made in the media, by our leaders, or even by your best friend. We're on information overload today, and there's a lot of bad information out there. Numbersense gives you the insight into how Big Data interpretation works--and how it too often doesn't work. You won't come away with the skills of a professional statistician. But you will have a keen understanding of the data traps even the best statisticians can fall into, and you'll trust the mental alarm that goes off in your head when something just doesn't seem to add up. Praise for Numbersense "Numbersense correctly puts the emphasis not on the size of big data, but on the analysis of it. Lots of fun stories, plenty of lessons learned—in short, a great way to acquire your own sense of numbers!" Thomas H. Davenport, coauthor of Competing on Analytics and President’s Distinguished Professor of IT and Management, Babson College "Kaiser’s accessible business book will blow your mind like no other. You’ll be smarter, and you won’t even realize it. Buy. It. Now." Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google, and author, Web Analytics 2.0 "Each story in Numbersense goes deep into what you have to think about before you trust the numbers. Kaiser Fung ably demonstrates that it takes skill and resourcefulness to make the numbers confess their meaning." John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS Institute "Kaiser Fung breaks the bad news—a ton more data is no panacea—but then has got your back, revealing the pitfalls of analysis with stimulating stories from the front lines of business, politics, health care, government, and education. The remedy isn’t an advanced degree, nor is it common sense. You need Numbersense." Eric Siegel, founder, Predictive Analytics World, and author, Predictive Analytics "I laughed my way through this superb-useful-fun book and learned and relearned a lot. Highly recommended!" Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

101 "e;Insanely Great"e; Resources -- BIG DATA is an easy-to-use introduction to the world of Big Data, particularly to 101 important resources for understanding the topic. It is filled with embedded links that take you directly to the Big Data section of a particular resources or to more specific sites such as Data Science Central or journals.

“In this comprehensive book, Professor Randy Deutsch has unlocked and laid bare the twenty-first century codice nascosto of architecture. It is data. Big data. Data as driver. . .This book offers us the chance to become informed and knowledgeable pursuers of data and the opportunities it offers to making architecture a wonderful, useful, and smart art form.” —From the Foreword by James Timberlake, FAIA Written for architects, engineers, contractors, owners, and educators, and based on today’s technology and practices, Data-Driven Design and Construction: 25 Strategies for Capturing, Applying and Analyzing Building Data addresses how innovative individuals and firms are using data to remain competitive while advancing their practices. seeks to address and rectify a gap in our learning, by explaining to architects, engineers, contractors and owners—and students of these fields—how to acquire and use data to make more informed decisions. documents how data-driven design is the new frontier of the convergence between BIM and architectural computational analyses and associated tools. is a book of adaptable strategies you and your organization can apply today to make the most of the data you have at your fingertips. Data-Driven Design and Construction was written to help design practitioners and their project teams make better use of BIM, and leverage data throughout the building lifecycle.

Online communities generate massive volumes of natural language data and the social sciences continue to learn how to best make use of this new information and the technology available for analyzing it. Text Mining brings together a broad range of contemporary qualitative and quantitative methods to provide strategic and practical guidance on analyzing large text collections. This accessible book, written by a sociologist and a computer scientist, surveys the fast-changing landscape of data sources, programming languages, software packages, and methods of analysis available today. Suitable for novice and experienced researchers alike, the book will help readers use text mining techniques more efficiently and productively.

Don't let a fear of numbers hold you back. Today's business environment brings with it an onslaught of data. Now more than ever, managers must know how to tease insight from data--to understand where the numbers come from, make sense of them, and use them to inform tough decisions. How do you get started? Whether you're working with data experts or running your own tests, you'll find answers in the HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers. This book describes three key steps in the data analysis process, so you can get the information you need, study the data, and communicate your findings to others. You'll learn how to: Identify the metrics you need to measure Run experiments and A/B tests Ask the right questions of your data experts Understand statistical terms and concepts Create effective charts and visualizations Avoid common mistakes

This book develops a new multimodal theoretical model of contagion for interdisciplinary scholars, featuring contributions from influential scholars spanning the fields of medical humanities, philosophy, political science, media studies, technoculture, literature, and bioethics. Exploring the nexus of contagion's metaphorical and material aspects, this volume contends that contagiousness in its digital, metaphorical, and biological forms is a pervasively endemic condition in our contemporary moment. The chapters explore both endemicity itself and how epidemic discourse has become endemic to processes of social construction. Designed to simultaneously prime those new to the discourse of humanistic perspectives of contagion, complicate issues of interest to seasoned scholars of science and technology studies, and add new topics for debate and inquiry in the field of bioethics, Endemic will be of wide interest for researchers and educators.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS YOU'LL WIN THE LOTTERY? How long will your kids wait in line at Disney World? Who decides that “standardized tests” are fair? Why do highway engineers build slow-moving ramps? What does it mean, statistically, to be an “Average Joe”? NUMBERS RULE YOUR WORLD In the popular tradition of eye-opening bestsellers like Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, and Super Crunchers, this fascinating book from renowned statistician and blogger Kaiser Fung takes you inside the hidden world of facts and figures that affect you every day, in every way. These are the statistics that rule your life, your job, your commute, your vacation, your food, your health, your money, and your success. This is how engineers calculate your quality of living, how corporations determine your needs, and how politicians estimate your opinions. These are the numbers you never think about-even though they play a crucial role in every single aspect of your life. What you learn may surprise you, amuse you, or even enrage you. But there's one thing you won't be able to deny: Numbers Rule Your World... "An easy read with a big benefit." —Fareed Zakaria, CNN "For those who have anxiety about how organization data-mining is impacting their world, Kaiser Fung pulls back the curtain to reveal the good and the bad of predictive analytics." —Ian Ayres,Yale professor and author of Super Crunchers: Why Thinking By Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart "A book that engages us with stories that a journalist would write, the compelling stories behind the stories as illuminated by the numbers, and the dynamics that the numbers reveal." —John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS Institute "Little did I suspect, when I picked up Kaiser Fung's book, that I would become so entranced by it - an illuminating and accessible exploration of the power of statistical analysis for those of us who have no prior training in a field that he explores so ably." —Peter Clarke, author of Keynes: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the 20th Century's Most Influential Economist "A tremendous book. . . . If you want to understand how to use statistics, how to think with numbers and yet to do this without getting lost in equations, if you've been looking for the book to unlock the door to logical thinking about problems, well, you will be pleased to know that you are holding that book in your hands." —Daniel Finkelstein, Executive Editor, The Times of London "I thoroughly enjoyed this accessible book and enthusiastically recommend it to anyone looking to understand and appreciate the role of statistics and data analysis in solving problems and in creating a better world." —Michael Sherman, Texas A&M University, American Statistician

This book explores how digital culture is transforming museums in the 21st century. Offering a corpus of new evidence for readers to explore, the authors trace the digital evolution of the museum and that of their audiences, now fully immersed in digital life, from the Internet to home and work. In a world where life in code and digits has redefined human information behavior and dominates daily activity and communication, ubiquitous use of digital tools and technology is radically changing the social contexts and purposes of museum exhibitions and collections, the work of museum professionals and the expectations of visitors, real and virtual. Moving beyond their walls, with local and global communities, museums are evolving into highly dynamic, socially aware and relevant institutions as their connections to the global digital ecosystem are strengthened. As they adopt a visitor-centered model and design visitor experiences, their priorities shift to engage audiences, convey digital collections, and tell stories through exhibitions. This is all part of crafting a dynamic and innovative museum identity of the future, made whole by seamless integration with digital culture, digital thinking, aesthetics, seeing and hearing, where visitors are welcomed participants. The international and interdisciplinary chapter contributors include digital artists, academics, and museum professionals. In themed parts the chapters present varied evidence-based research and case studies on museum theory, philosophy, collections, exhibitions, libraries, digital art and digital future, to bring new insights and perspectives, designed to inspire readers. Enjoy the journey!

Just as athletes stretch their muscles before every game and musicians play scales to keep their technique in tune, mathematical thinkers and problem solvers can benefit from daily warm-up exercises. Jessica Shumway has developed a series of routines designed to help young students internalize and deepen their facility with numbers. The daily use of these quick five-, ten-, or fifteen-minute experiences at the beginning of math class will help build students' number sense. Students with strong number sense understand numbers, ways to represent numbers, relationships among numbers, and number systems. They make reasonable estimates, compute fluently, use reasoning strategies (e.g., relate operations, such as addition and subtraction, to each other), and use visual models based on their number sense to solve problems. Students who never develop strong number sense will struggle with nearly all mathematical strands, from measurement and geometry to data and equations. In Number Sense Routines, Jessica shows that number sense can be taught to all students. Dozens of classroom examples -- including conversations among students engaging in number sense routines -- illustrate how the routines work, how children's number sense develops, and how to implement responsive routines. Additionally, teachers will gain a deeper understanding of the underlying math -- the big ideas, skills, and strategies children learn as they develop numerical literacy.