Page 1,670«..1020..1,6691,6701,6711,672..1,6801,690..»

What is Data Science | IBM

Learn how data science can unlock business insights and accelerate digital transformation and enable data-driven decision making.

Data science combines math and statistics, specialized programming, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning with specific subject matter expertise to uncover actionable insights hidden in an organizations data. These insights can be used to guide decision making and strategic planning.

The accelerating volume of data sources, and subsequently data, has made data science is one of the fastest growing field across every industry. As a result, it is no surprise that the role of the data scientist was dubbed the sexiest job of the 21st century by Harvard Business Review (link resides outside of IBM). Organizations are increasingly reliant on them to interpret data and provide actionable recommendations to improve business outcomes.

The data science lifecycle involves various roles, tools, and processes, which enables analysts to glean actionable insights. Typically, a data science project undergoes the following stages:

Data science is considered a discipline, while data scientists are the practitioners within that field. Data scientists are not necessarily directly responsible for all the processes involved in the data science lifecycle. For example, data pipelines are typically handled by data engineersbut the data scientist may make recommendations about what sort of data is useful or required. While data scientists can build machine learning models, scaling these efforts at a larger level requires more software engineering skills to optimize a program to run more quickly. As a result, its common for a data scientist to partner with machine learning engineers to scale machine learning models.

Data scientist responsibilities can commonly overlap with a data analyst, particularly with exploratory data analysis and data visualization. However, a data scientists skillset is typically broader than the average data analyst. Comparatively speaking, data scientist leverage common programming languages, such as R and Python, to conduct more statistical inference and data visualization.

To perform these tasks, data scientists require computer science and pure science skills beyond those of a typical business analyst or data analyst. The data scientist must also understand the specifics of the business, such as automobile manufacturing, eCommerce, or healthcare.

In short, a data scientist must be able to:

These skills are in high demand, and as a result, many individuals that are breaking into a data science career, explore a variety of data science programs, such as certification programs, data science courses, and degree programs offered by educational institutions.

It may be easy to confuse the terms data science and business intelligence (BI) because they both relate to an organizations data and analysis of that data, but they do differ in focus.

Business intelligence (BI) is typically an umbrella term for the technology that enables data preparation, data mining, data management, and data visualization. Business intelligence tools and processes allow end users to identify actionable information from raw data, facilitating data-driven decision-making within organizations across various industries. While data science tools overlap in much of this regard, business intelligence focuses more on data from the past, and the insights from BI tools are more descriptive in nature. It uses data to understand what happened before to inform a course of action. BI is geared toward static (unchanging) data that is usually structured. While data science uses descriptive data, it typically utilizes it to determine predictive variables, which are then used to categorize data or to make forecasts

Data science and BI are not mutually exclusivedigitally savvy organizations use both to fully understand and extract value from their data.

Data scientists rely on popular programming languages to conduct exploratory data analysis and statistical regression. These open source tools support pre-built statistical modeling, machine learning, and graphics capabilities. These languages include the following (read more at "Python vs. R: What's the Difference?"):

To facilitate sharing code and other information, data scientists may use GitHub and Jupyter notebooks.

Some data scientists may prefer a user interface, and two common enterprise tools for statistical analysis include:

Data scientists also gain proficiency in using big data processing platforms, such as Apache Spark, the open source framework Apache Hadoop, and NoSQL databases. They are also skilled with a wide range of data visualization tools, including simple graphics tools included with business presentation and spreadsheet applications (like Microsoft Excel), built-for-purpose commercial visualization tools like Tableau and IBM Cognos, and open source tools like D3.js (a JavaScript library for creating interactive data visualizations) and RAW Graphs. For building machine learning models, data scientists frequently turn to several frameworks like PyTorch, TensorFlow, MXNet, and Spark MLib.

Given the steep learning curve in data science, many companies are seeking to accelerate their return on investment for AI projects; they often struggle to hire the talent needed to realize data science projects full potential. To address this gap, they are turning to multipersona data science and machine learning (DSML) platforms, giving rise to the role of citizen data scientist.

Multipersona DSML platforms use automation, self-service portals, and low-code/no-code user interfaces so that people with little or no background in digital technology or expert data science can create business value using data science and machine learning. These platforms also support expert data scientists by also offering a more technical interface. Using a multipersona DSML platform encourages collaboration across the enterprise.

Cloud computing scales data science by providing access to additional processing power, storage, and other tools required for data science projects.

Since data science frequently leverages large data sets, tools that can scale with the size of the data is incredibly important, particularly for time-sensitive projects. Cloud storage solutions, such as data lakes, provide access to storage infrastructure, which are capable of ingesting and processing large volumes of data with ease. These storage systems provide flexibility to end users, allowing them to spin up large clusters as needed. They can also add incremental compute nodes to expedite data processing jobs, allowing the business to make short-term tradeoffs for a larger long-term outcome. Cloud platforms typically have different pricing models, such a per-use or subscriptions, to meet the needs of their end userwhether they are a large enterprise or a small startup.

Open source technologies are widely used in data science tool sets. When theyre hosted in the cloud, teams dont need to install, configure, maintain, or update them locally. Several cloud providers, including IBM Cloud, also offer prepackaged tool kits that enable data scientists to build models without coding, further democratizing access to technology innovations and data insights.

Enterprises can unlock numerous benefits from data science. Common use cases include process optimization through intelligent automation and enhanced targeting and personalization to improve the customer experience (CX). However, more specific examples include:

Here are a few representative use cases for data science and artificial intelligence:

IBM Cloud offers a highly secure public cloud infrastructure with a full-stack platform that includes more than 170 products and services, many of which were designed to support data science and AI.

IBMs data science and AI lifecycle product portfolio is built upon our longstanding commitment to open source technologies and includes a range of capabilities that enable enterprises to unlock the value of their data in new ways.

AutoAI, a powerful new automated development capability in IBM Watson Studio, speeds the data preparation, model development, and feature engineering stages of the data science lifecycle. This allows data scientists to be more efficient and helps them make better-informed decisions about which models will perform best for real-world use cases. AutoAI simplifies enterprise data science across any cloud environment.

The IBM Cloud Pak for Data platform provides a fully integrated and extensible data and information architecture built on the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform that runs on any cloud. With IBM Cloud Pak for Data, enterprises can more easily collect, organize and analyze data, making it possible to infuse insights from AI throughout the entire organization.

Want to learn more about building and running data science models on IBM Cloud? Get started for no-charge by signing up for an IBM Cloud account today.

Autostrade per lItalia implemented several IBM solutions for a complete digital transformation to improve how it monitors and maintains its vast array of infrastructure assets.

Read the case study

MANA Community teamed with IBM Garage to build an AI platform to mine huge volumes of environmental data volumes from multiple digital channels and thousands of sources.

Read the case study

Continue reading here:

What is Data Science | IBM

Read More..

What is Data Science? | The Data Science Career Path – UCB-UMT

Data science continues to evolve as one of the most promising and in-demand career paths for skilled professionals. Today, successful data professionals understand that they must advance past the traditional skills of analyzing large amounts of data, data mining, and programming skills. In order to uncover useful intelligence for their organizations, data scientists must master the full spectrum of the data science life cycle and possess a level of flexibility and understanding to maximize returns at each phase of the process.

The Data Science Life Cycle

The term data scientist was coined as recently as 2008 when companies realized the need for data professionals who are skilled in organizing and analyzing massive amounts of data.1 In a 2009 McKinsey&Company article, Hal Varian, Googles chief economist and UC Berkeley professor of information sciences, business, and economics, predicted the importance of adapting to technologys influence and reconfiguration of different industries.2

The ability to take data to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it thats going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades.

Hal Varian, chief economist at Google and UC Berkeley professor of information sciences, business, and economics3

Effective data scientists are able to identify relevant questions, collect data from a multitude of different data sources, organize the information, translate results into solutions, and communicate their findings in a way that positively affects business decisions. These skills are required in almost all industries, causing skilled data scientists to be increasingly valuable to companies.

Advance Your Career with an Online Short Course

Take theData Science Essentialsonline short course and earn a certificatefrom the UC Berkeley School of Information.

What Does a Data Scientist Do?

In the past decade, data scientists have become necessary assets and are present in almost all organizations. These professionals are well-rounded, data-driven individuals with high-level technical skills who are capable of building complex quantitative algorithms to organize and synthesize large amounts of information used to answer questions and drive strategy in their organization. This is coupled with the experience in communication and leadership needed to deliver tangible results to various stakeholders across an organization or business.

Data scientists need to be curious and result-oriented, with exceptional industry-specific knowledge and communication skills that allow them to explain highly technical results to their non-technical counterparts. They possess a strong quantitative background in statistics and linear algebra as well as programming knowledge with focuses in data warehousing, mining, and modeling to build and analyze algorithms.

They must also be able to utilize key technical tools and skills, including:

R

Python

Apache Hadoop

MapReduce

Apache Spark

NoSQL databases

Cloud computing

D3

Apache Pig

Tableau

iPython notebooks

GitHub

Why Become a Data Scientist?

Glassdoor ranked data scientist among the top three jobs in America since 2016.4 As increasing amounts of data become more accessible, large tech companies are no longer the only ones in need of data scientists. The growing demand for data science professionals across industries, big and small, is being challenged by a shortage of qualified candidates available to fill the open positions.5

The need for data scientists shows no sign of slowing down in the coming years. LinkedIn listed data scientist as one of the most promising jobs in 2021, along with multiple data-science-related skills as the most in-demand by companies.6

The statistics listed below represent the significant and growing demand for data scientists.

Number of Job Openings

Average Base Salary

Best Job in America 2021

Sources:GlassdoorandForbes

Where Do You Fit in Data Science?

Data is everywhere and expansive. A variety of terms related to mining, cleaning, analyzing, and interpreting data are often used interchangeably, but they can actually involve different skill sets and complexity of data.

Data Scientist

Data scientists examine which questions need answering and where to find the related data. They have business acumen and analytical skills as well as the ability to mine, clean, and present data. Businesses use data scientists to source, manage, and analyze large amounts of unstructured data. Results are then synthesized and communicated to key stakeholders to drive strategic decision-making in the organization.

Skills needed:Programming skills (SAS, R, Python), statistical and mathematical skills, storytelling and data visualization, Hadoop, SQL, machine learning

Data Analyst

Data analysts bridge the gap between data scientists and business analysts. They are provided with the questions that need answering from an organization and then organize and analyze data to find results that align with high-level business strategy. Data analysts are responsible for translating technical analysis to qualitative action items and effectively communicating their findings to diverse stakeholders.

Skills needed:Programming skills (SAS, R, Python), statistical and mathematical skills, data wrangling, data visualization

Data Engineer

Data engineers manage exponential amounts of rapidly changing data. They focus on the development, deployment, management, and optimization of data pipelines and infrastructure to transform and transfer data to data scientists for querying.

Skills needed:Programming languages (Java, Scala), NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Cassandra DB), frameworks (Apache Hadoop)

Data Science Career Outlook and Salary Opportunities

Data science professionals are rewarded for their highly technical skill set with competitive salaries and great job opportunities at big and small companies in most industries. With almost 6,000 open positions listed on Glassdoor, data science professionals with the appropriate experience and education have the opportunity to make their mark in some of the most forward-thinking companies in the world.8

Below are the average base salaries for the following positions:9

Data analyst:$69,517

Data scientist:$117,212

Senior data scientist:$142,258

Data engineer:$112,493

Gaining specialized skills within the data science field can distinguish data scientists even further. For example, machine learning experts utilize high-level programming skills to create algorithms that continuously gather data and automatically adjust their function to be more effective.

1hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century. Accessed April 2018.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference2 http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/hal-varian-on-how-the-web-challenges-managers. Accessed July 2018.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference3www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/hal-varian-on-how-the-web-challenges-managers. Accessed July 2018.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference4 https://www.glassdoor.com/List/Best-Jobs-in-America-LST_KQ0,20.htm. Accessed October 2021.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference5 https://www.discoverdatascience.org/articles/top-reasons-to-become-a-data-scientist/arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference6 https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/resources/talent-acquisition/jobs-on-the-rise-us. Accessed October 2021.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference7 https://towardsdatascience.com/is-data-science-still-a-rising-career-in-2021-722281f7074c. Accessed October 2021.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference 8 https://www.glassdoor.com/List/Best-Jobs-in-America-LST_KQ0,20.htm. Accessed April 2018.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference9 http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm. Accessed April 2018.arrow_upwardReturn to footnote reference

Originally posted here:

What is Data Science? | The Data Science Career Path - UCB-UMT

Read More..

What is Data Science? (introduction for beginners)

In this article Ill answer a very simple question: What is data science?

Well, the question is simple, sure But the answer is rather complex.

The problem is that there are no generally accepted definitions. But in this article, Ill show you many important aspects of data science. And by the end, youll have a pretty clear mental picture about what it is exactly!

Do you prefer watching this in video format? Here you go:

What is data science? A broad definition would be something like this:

You have a large amount of data and youre trying to extract something smart and useful from it.

Thats abstract, I know Maybe a bit of an oversimplification, too.

So heres an everyday example to help you understand it.

Note: Itll be an everyday example intentionally, but read it carefully and youll see the business parallels, too!

Okay, lets see it!

Im sure you have seen smart watches or maybe you use one, too. These smart gadgets can measure your sleep quality, how much you walk, your heart rate, etc.

Lets take sleep quality, for instance!

If you check every single day, how did you sleep the night before, thats 1 data point for every day. Lets say that you enjoyed excellent sleep last night: you slept 8 hours, you didnt move too much, you didnt have short awakenings, etc. Thats a data point. The day after, you slept slightly worse: only 7 hours. Thats another data point.

By collecting these data points for a whole month, you can start to draw trends from them. Maybe, on the weekends, you sleep better and longer. Maybe if you go to bed earlier, your sleep quality is better. Or you recognize that you have short awakenings around 2 am every night

By collecting the data for a year, you can create more complex analyses. You can learn whats the best time for you to go to bed and wake up. You can identify the more stressful parts of the year (when you worked too much and slept too little). Even more, you might be able to predict these stressful parts of the year and you can prepare yourself!

We are getting closer and closer to data science Lets go even deeper!

If you have enough data, you can discover not only trends but correlations, too!

You can check out, for instance, how your sleep quality is affected by how much exercise you got in the given week. (Walking, running, biking, swimming, etc. These can also be measured by smart watches.) A simple correlation would be to see this: on the days you took more than 5,000 steps, your sleep quality was excellent. This is more than an analysis This can be the basis of an action plan: lets walk at least 5,000 steps every day!

Note: Although, I have to mention that in real life, a data scientist does much more research to get to a conclusion like this one.

And there are even more levels.

Just imagine the data that the producer of this smart watch can collect. In theory (lets not consider legal aspects for now) they could see all the data of all their customers. And with that, they can produce analyses of their data that you a single customer could never even imagine.

Can the symptoms of depression be mitigated by walking 3,000 steps a day for most people? Are people really healthier in some countries than in others? Can weather conditions strongly impact certain social movements? And there are many, many more interesting questions. And these companies might already have enough data points to research these.

Note 1: Most of them are probably doing research around these questions already.

Note 2: Lets not talk about the legal and ethical aspects of these things here. While these are incredibly interesting and important questions, theyre a whole article by themselves.

So as you see: the more data (and the more detailed data) you have in a data science project, the more complex, exciting and useful analyses and predictions you can create.

In essence, this is what data science is about.

Except that all these cant only be done with smart watches and by individuals.

But with many other tools that produce and collect data in many other fields of life

Data science, of course, conquered the world of online businesses first.

Why online businesses? Because thats the #1 place where you can collect data about every single movement of a user. (Some companies, of course, abused this opportunity. But again: we wont dive into the legal and ethical aspects in this article.)

Also, parts of data science have been present in different social sciences for decades!

And in the last few years, its started to gain a foothold in fields like:

Okay, so far Ive written about how data science can be useful.

Lets talk about what skills and tools you need to do data science!

If you have ever read my blog, Im sure youve seen this Venn diagram:

I show it quite often and its really important.

It says that if you want to be a data scientist, you have to be good at three things:

Why are they so important?

Coding is inevitable, because thats the tool you need to work with your data. Its like the piano for the pianist, the brush for the painter, or the pen for the poet. If you want to make your ideas come true, you have to know and use your tools as a professional. (The most popular data science languages are: SQL, Python and bash. I write about all of them on my blog. You can also get access to free cheat sheets and video courses by joining the Data36 Inner Circle.)

Statistics is the actual science of your data science projects. After all, data is about numbers. And when you work with numbers, you should be confident with mathematical and statistical concepts, right?

I know that many people are afraid of (or even more: they hate) statistics. But statistics is not boring nor extremely difficult. Its only that it has bad marketing. To become a data scientist, you have to be familiar with statistical concepts like: statistical averages, statistical biases, correlation analysis, probability theory, functions machine learning algorithms, of course and so on

The third topic is business knowledge. This is a soft factor. For example, lets say that you are working for a bank as a Data Analyst. You can be the best coder and the best statistician, but if you dont understand the business concept behind interest rates or how mortgages work, you will never be able to deliver a meaningful data analysis. I wrote more about the business aspect of data science in this article: Data Science for Business.

So data science is an intersection of three things: statistics, coding and business.

Note 1: Of course, to be successful in the long-term in data science, you have to build other soft skills like: presentation skills, project management skills or people skills.

You can learn more about how to become a data scientist by taking my free course. You also can download all my Python, SQL and bash cheat sheets if you join the Data36 Inner Circle.

I wish I had a dollar for every time mainstream media (e.g. news portals, magazines, even conferences) misinterpret the different data-science-related terms.

Well, in everyday use they are buzzwords.

But they have real meanings and a certain place within the field of data science, too. So its time to clarify what means what.

Usually, you will use your data for 3 major things in your data science projects:

The word data analysis refers to the most conventional way of using your data. You run analyses to understand what happened in the past and where are you now. Lets say you have this chart outlining the first 16 months of your product sales:

Now, predictive analytics refers to projects where you use the same historical data that you see above but this time you try to predict the future. So youll answer the what will happen question. Lets use the same dataset (blue line) to estimate how your product sales will do through the 20th month (red line):

Thats a prediction.

However, its not really accurate, is it?

Is this model better:

Or is there an even better one? Any of these maybe?

When you ask the what is data science question, most data scientists would say that at least this is where the science part of it starts.

But this is really just the tip of the iceberg

When a computer fits the lines on the above examples, it tries to find a mathematical formula (red line) that describes well enough the relationship between the real-life data points (blue line) that have a natural variance anyway.

Now you might ask: how the heck can computer find that mathematical formula?

By using Machine Learning.

Machine Learning is the general name for all the methods by which your computer fine-tunes a statistical model and finds the best fit for your dataset. And the blue-line-red-line example is only one of many. There are tons of machine learning methods for all the different typical data science problems. This model fitting machine learning method is called regression or more precisely: linear and polynomial regression. But there are classification problems (popular machine learning algorithms: decision tree, random forest, logistic regression, etc.), clustering tasks (popular machine learning algorithms: K-Means Clustering, DBSCAN, etc.) and many more.

I wont go into detail here but I will write more about these on Data36. So stay tuned!

Actually, Id like to talk about one particular machine learning method.

Its called deep learning and its gotten very popular in the last few years but many still dont know what it is and what it is good for.

Deep learning is nothing but one specific machine learning method. As I mentioned, there are a lot of machine learning models and all of them are good for solving different data science problems. Deep Learning is only one of them thats recently been widely used for image and voice recognition projects. The way it works is quite interesting, by the way. It gets input values and it turns them into output values after filtering through many layers by creating automatic correlations. It works very similarly to how the human brain works. (More about deep learning in another article.)

Note: The best explanation of deep learning that Ive heard so far was by Andrej Karpathy, Director of AI at Tesla. In his presentation, he introduced how Tesla cars learn to drive. He also explained the general concept of deep learning and he showed how they are using it. Its part of a bigger presentation, and you can find the full video here Andrejs talk starts at 1:52:05 and ends at 2:24:55.

Oh, boy.

Well, I wrote a long paragraph about incompetent wannabe data professionals, clickbait journalists and ignorant managers (who read articles from those clickbait journalists) and of course, companies who try to market their simple data-based products with the AI tag (that recently sells everything) But I just deleted it because I dont want to offend anyone.

Its enough if you know that AI doesnt exist yet. And if humanity does ever create one, it wont happen in the next few years. Right now, there is no computer that would be capable even of imitating creativity, intuitions, ambitions, inspiration or anything else that makes us human.

Sure, there are very advanced bots like the one that Google presented in mid-2018. (Check out the video here.) But if you think about it its nothing but a combination of an advanced chatbot, an advanced voice recognition software (like the one that you have in your smartphone) and an advanced speaking engine.

Note: Plus, you have to know that most of these bots work only in very narrow situations. As soon as they fall off their script they are useless. Also, show me a bot that has its own ambition to learn Chinese or Spanish because it feels that it will be important for its career Right? Todays AI is not even close to real human intelligence.

Okay, you get the theory. But how will all these get useful and profitable for your business? There are so many ways that it could barely fit this article.

But Ill leave here five examples to give you a few ideas, at least. (As this is an introductory article, Ill start with these simpler ones. But Ill add more, later. If you want to get notified, subscribe to my newsletter!)

The first example is a classic data project in a classic online business.

Lets say that you have an e-commerce business and you want to create reports for internal usage. (Many companies are doing this, by the way although whether they are doing it right is a whole nother article.)

In a project like this, the goal is always to help the decision makers and managers see more clearly before they make an actual decision. The job of the data scientists and analysts is to provide analyses, reports and charts supporting these folks.

The data scientist goes and checks out what happened in the last weeks, months or years. What are the trends? What changed? What is the typical customer journey? What can we expect in the future based on the data from the past? And the management makes decisions based on these.

Lets say that we see that people are buying more and more red socks and fewer and fewer yellow T-shirts. Obviously, youll try to align your offers with these trends.

This is a dead simple example of using data in a business yet, done right, it can provide a lot of value.

Note: I mean, its simple to talk about. Putting it into practice is always harder. The devil is in the details, you know

The second example is a slightly more advanced and complex data science project.

Were looking at the very same e-commerce company as before. But now, lets focus on the advertising costs. For the sake of simplicity, lets talk about Google Ads only.

Lets say, we get a question from management: what should our budget be in the next quarter for Google Ads? Its not so simple to set the right value!

If the budget is too high, thats not good because we will overspend and the profit will start to go down. If the budget is too low, thats not good either because then we dont spend enough money on advertising, sales go down, so does income, so does profit.

Got the problem?

Heres where data science comes into play!

The data scientist will know how to estimate the optimal spending limit that results in the most profit.

I mean, at many companies, a senior marketing manager can do this, as well based on best practices and industry benchmarks even in spreadsheets! And sometimes with pretty great results! But data science offers an even better and more precise solution: by using machine learning and predictive analytics!

Lets see the case:

The data scientist of this company will work with data from the last few years. This can include cost, income, website traffic, sales, and many other input variables. Using these data points from the past, the data scientist tries to fit a machine learning model to the dataset. She will get a mathematical model that she will be able to use creating a super accurate prediction and eventually an optimal budget for the next quarter.

This is great because its more accurate compared to the manual, human-created predictions. But its also more scalable! You can always make these things more complex by including 6-8-10 more marketing channels where you can spend money on advertising. A human would struggle with maintaining an overarching view of all these. For a computer and a machine learning algorithm, thats just another few variables in the formula.

Okay, Im not saying that every company should build their advertising budgets on data science and machine learning But theres a certain size and complexity above which it is extremely profitable.

My third example is a grocery stores data project.

Food is usually not a long lasting product, right?

Ive heard this from a friend who works for a well-known grocery giant as a data scientist: For big grocery stores and food companies, predicting how much of different products they should order and stock is a huge challenge.

Its the same dilemma as in the previous example: if they order too much food, it goes bad on the shelves. If too little, they wont have supply and their shoppers will be dissatisfied or even worse: go to a competitor.

Either way: they realize a loss. The only way to win is to find the perfect balance!

The solution for this problem can again be a fine-tuned predictive analytics model that makes predictions based on past data. This can be done based on multiple input variables by using mathematical models. Once you can predict the demand, it becomes much easier to align the supply.

By the way, data science is quite popular in this segment. For instance, there are numerous cool stories about how Walmart predicts trends and finds correlations between different variables in their business. Unfortunately, I cant find trustworthy resources on this topic, so I dont know whether Walmart has really done these or these are just urban legends But one things for sure: with the technology we have in 2020, these data science projects could be done easily.

Originally posted here:

What is Data Science? (introduction for beginners)

Read More..

What is Data Science: Tutorial, Components, Tools, Life Cycle … – Java

Data Science has become the most demanding job of the 21st century. Every organization is looking for candidates with knowledge of data science. In this tutorial, we are giving an introduction to data science, with data science Job roles, tools for data science, components of data science, application, etc.

So let's start,

Data science is a deep study of the massive amount of data, which involves extracting meaningful insights from raw, structured, and unstructured data that is processed using the scientific method, different technologies, and algorithms.

It is a multidisciplinary field that uses tools and techniques to manipulate the data so that you can find something new and meaningful.

Data science uses the most powerful hardware, programming systems, and most efficient algorithms to solve the data related problems. It is the future of artificial intelligence.

In short, we can say that data science is all about:

Let suppose we want to travel from station A to station B by car. Now, we need to take some decisions such as which route will be the best route to reach faster at the location, in which route there will be no traffic jam, and which will be cost-effective. All these decision factors will act as input data, and we will get an appropriate answer from these decisions, so this analysis of data is called the data analysis, which is a part of data science.

Some years ago, data was less and mostly available in a structured form, which could be easily stored in excel sheets, and processed using BI tools.

But in today's world, data is becoming so vast, i.e., approximately 2.5 quintals bytes of data is generating on every day, which led to data explosion. It is estimated as per researches, that by 2020, 1.7 MB of data will be created at every single second, by a single person on earth. Every Company requires data to work, grow, and improve their businesses.

Now, handling of such huge amount of data is a challenging task for every organization. So to handle, process, and analysis of this, we required some complex, powerful, and efficient algorithms and technology, and that technology came into existence as data Science. Following are some main reasons for using data science technology:

As per various surveys, data scientist job is becoming the most demanding Job of the 21st century due to increasing demands for data science. Some people also called it "the hottest job title of the 21st century". Data scientists are the experts who can use various statistical tools and machine learning algorithms to understand and analyze the data.

The average salary range for data scientist will be approximately $95,000 to $ 165,000 per annum, and as per different researches, about 11.5 millions of job will be created by the year 2026.

If you learn data science, then you get the opportunity to find the various exciting job roles in this domain. The main job roles are given below:

Below is the explanation of some critical job titles of data science.

1. Data Analyst:

Data analyst is an individual, who performs mining of huge amount of data, models the data, looks for patterns, relationship, trends, and so on. At the end of the day, he comes up with visualization and reporting for analyzing the data for decision making and problem-solving process.

Skill required: For becoming a data analyst, you must get a good background in mathematics, business intelligence, data mining, and basic knowledge of statistics. You should also be familiar with some computer languages and tools such as MATLAB, Python, SQL, Hive, Pig, Excel, SAS, R, JS, Spark, etc.

2. Machine Learning Expert:

The machine learning expert is the one who works with various machine learning algorithms used in data science such as regression, clustering, classification, decision tree, random forest, etc.

Skill Required: Computer programming languages such as Python, C++, R, Java, and Hadoop. You should also have an understanding of various algorithms, problem-solving analytical skill, probability, and statistics.

3. Data Engineer:

A data engineer works with massive amount of data and responsible for building and maintaining the data architecture of a data science project. Data engineer also works for the creation of data set processes used in modeling, mining, acquisition, and verification.

Skill required: Data engineer must have depth knowledge of SQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, HBase, Apache Spark, Hive, MapReduce, with language knowledge of Python, C/C++, Java, Perl, etc.

4. Data Scientist:

A data scientist is a professional who works with an enormous amount of data to come up with compelling business insights through the deployment of various tools, techniques, methodologies, algorithms, etc.

Skill required: To become a data scientist, one should have technical language skills such as R, SAS, SQL, Python, Hive, Pig, Apache spark, MATLAB. Data scientists must have an understanding of Statistics, Mathematics, visualization, and communication skills.

BI stands for business intelligence, which is also used for data analysis of business information: Below are some differences between BI and Data sciences:

The main components of Data Science are given below:

1. Statistics: Statistics is one of the most important components of data science. Statistics is a way to collect and analyze the numerical data in a large amount and finding meaningful insights from it.

2. Domain Expertise: In data science, domain expertise binds data science together. Domain expertise means specialized knowledge or skills of a particular area. In data science, there are various areas for which we need domain experts.

3. Data engineering: Data engineering is a part of data science, which involves acquiring, storing, retrieving, and transforming the data. Data engineering also includes metadata (data about data) to the data.

4. Visualization: Data visualization is meant by representing data in a visual context so that people can easily understand the significance of data. Data visualization makes it easy to access the huge amount of data in visuals.

5. Advanced computing: Heavy lifting of data science is advanced computing. Advanced computing involves designing, writing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs.

6. Mathematics: Mathematics is the critical part of data science. Mathematics involves the study of quantity, structure, space, and changes. For a data scientist, knowledge of good mathematics is essential.

7. Machine learning: Machine learning is backbone of data science. Machine learning is all about to provide training to a machine so that it can act as a human brain. In data science, we use various machine learning algorithms to solve the problems.

Following are some tools required for data science:

To become a data scientist, one should also be aware of machine learning and its algorithms, as in data science, there are various machine learning algorithms which are broadly being used. Following are the name of some machine learning algorithms used in data science:

We will provide you some brief introduction for few of the important algorithms here,

1. Linear Regression Algorithm: Linear regression is the most popular machine learning algorithm based on supervised learning. This algorithm work on regression, which is a method of modeling target values based on independent variables. It represents the form of the linear equation, which has a relationship between the set of inputs and predictive output. This algorithm is mostly used in forecasting and predictions. Since it shows the linear relationship between input and output variable, hence it is called linear regression.

The below equation can describe the relationship between x and y variables:

Y= mx+c

Where, y= Dependent variableX= independent variableM= slopeC= intercept.

2. Decision Tree: Decision Tree algorithm is another machine learning algorithm, which belongs to the supervised learning algorithm. This is one of the most popular machine learning algorithms. It can be used for both classification and regression problems.

In the decision tree algorithm, we can solve the problem, by using tree representation in which, each node represents a feature, each branch represents a decision, and each leaf represents the outcome.

Following is the example for a Job offer problem:

In the decision tree, we start from the root of the tree and compare the values of the root attribute with record attribute. On the basis of this comparison, we follow the branch as per the value and then move to the next node. We continue comparing these values until we reach the leaf node with predicated class value.

3. K-Means Clustering: K-means clustering is one of the most popular algorithms of machine learning, which belongs to the unsupervised learning algorithm. It solves the clustering problem.

If we are given a data set of items, with certain features and values, and we need to categorize those set of items into groups, so such type of problems can be solved using k-means clustering algorithm.

K-means clustering algorithm aims at minimizing an objective function, which known as squared error function, and it is given as:

Where, J(V) => Objective function'||xi - vj||' => Euclidean distance between xi and vj.ci' => Number of data points in ith cluster.C => Number of clusters.

Now, let's understand what are the most common types of problems occurred in data science and what is the approach to solving the problems. So in data science, problems are solved using algorithms, and below is the diagram representation for applicable algorithms for possible questions:

Is this A or B? :

We can refer to this type of problem which has only two fixed solutions such as Yes or No, 1 or 0, may or may not. And this type of problems can be solved using classification algorithms.

Is this different? :

We can refer to this type of question which belongs to various patterns, and we need to find odd from them. Such type of problems can be solved using Anomaly Detection Algorithms.

How much or how many?

The other type of problem occurs which ask for numerical values or figures such as what is the time today, what will be the temperature today, can be solved using regression algorithms.

How is this organized?

Now if you have a problem which needs to deal with the organization of data, then it can be solved using clustering algorithms.

Clustering algorithm organizes and groups the data based on features, colors, or other common characteristics.

The life-cycle of data science is explained as below diagram.

The main phases of data science life cycle are given below:

1. Discovery: The first phase is discovery, which involves asking the right questions. When you start any data science project, you need to determine what are the basic requirements, priorities, and project budget. In this phase, we need to determine all the requirements of the project such as the number of people, technology, time, data, an end goal, and then we can frame the business problem on first hypothesis level.

2. Data preparation: Data preparation is also known as Data Munging. In this phase, we need to perform the following tasks:

After performing all the above tasks, we can easily use this data for our further processes.

3. Model Planning: In this phase, we need to determine the various methods and techniques to establish the relation between input variables. We will apply Exploratory data analytics(EDA) by using various statistical formula and visualization tools to understand the relations between variable and to see what data can inform us. Common tools used for model planning are:

4. Model-building: In this phase, the process of model building starts. We will create datasets for training and testing purpose. We will apply different techniques such as association, classification, and clustering, to build the model.

Following are some common Model building tools:

5. Operationalize: In this phase, we will deliver the final reports of the project, along with briefings, code, and technical documents. This phase provides you a clear overview of complete project performance and other components on a small scale before the full deployment.

6. Communicate results: In this phase, we will check if we reach the goal, which we have set on the initial phase. We will communicate the findings and final result with the business team.

Continued here:

What is Data Science: Tutorial, Components, Tools, Life Cycle ... - Java

Read More..

What Is Data Science Definition – DataRobot AI Cloud

What is Data Science?

Data science is the field of study that combines domain expertise, programming skills, and knowledge of mathematics and statistics to extract meaningful insights from data. Data science practitioners apply machine learning algorithms to numbers, text, images, video, audio, and more to produce artificial intelligence (AI) systems to perform tasks that ordinarily require human intelligence. In turn, these systems generate insights which analysts and business users can translate into tangible business value.

More and more companies are coming to realize the importance of data science, AI, and machine learning. Regardless of industry or size, organizations that wish to remain competitive in the age of big data need to efficiently develop and implement data science capabilities or risk being left behind.

Ramping up data science efforts is difficult even for companies with near-unlimited resources. The DataRobot AI Cloud Platform democratizes data science and AI, enabling analysts, business users, and other technical professionals to become Citizen Data Scientists and AI Engineers, in addition to making data scientists more productive. It automates repetitive modeling tasks that once occupied the vast majority of data scientists time and brainpower. DataRobot bridges the gap between data scientists and the rest of the organization, making enterprise machine learning more accessible than ever.

Leading data science expertise. Available to anyone

Read the rest here:

What Is Data Science Definition - DataRobot AI Cloud

Read More..

New Macau Data Science Application Association vows to raise profile of the field in the region – Macau Business

Newly registered Macau Data Science Application Association (MODL), also known as Macau Data Lab, to organise more meetups and initiatives focused on data science and raising the profile of data science within the Greater Bay Area.

In an announcement, the association founder and chairman, Xavier Mathieu, highlighted the new association motto to bring together data science enthusiasts or anyone curious in deepening its knowledge in the field.

Hopefully, Macau Data Lab will fulfil its mission of raising the profile of data science in GBA, and become a central meeting point in Macau for anybody interested or involved in data science, from curious individuals wanting to know more to the professionals willing to meet its peers, the seasoned researcher, the student creating his portfolio, the executive looking for growth strategies, anybody is welcome, the association announced.

Mathieu initially imported the concept in 2019 in Macau from a group he previously founded in Hong-Kong, with the first event involving the screening of a movie about data science.

The local group then proceeded to organize more events about 20 in the last 2 years gathering data enthusiasts who wish to discuss data science techniques, stories, present their work, or simply meet their peers in an informal setup.

Data science is a vaguely defined discipline, and data is literally everywhere. In consequence, there is a humongous amount of references, books, videos, articles on the net to learn theory or techniques, which can feel overwhelming for people learning, and also lots of daydreaming articles that make non-specialists believe that AI is a magic wand, leading later to disappointments, Mathieu added.

The best way to understand is to practice: there is no better way to really learn something than doing an actual project and exchanging with others. Plus this is so much funnier

Go here to see the original:

New Macau Data Science Application Association vows to raise profile of the field in the region - Macau Business

Read More..

Announcing the Election Data Analytics team – The New York Times Company

I am excited to introduce the first members of the newsrooms Election Data Analytics team, a new group tasked with expanding election-related analytical journalism. This group is part of our ambitious plan to expand the breadth and depth of our data journalism, which has already become a signature part of our report.

The Times has become the pre-eminent destination on election nights for tens of millions of Americans who turn to us for the latest election results and for clear statistical analysis that demonstrates how the races are actually playing out. But we want to continue to innovate in this area. As we head into the midterms and look toward the 2024 presidential election, we must expand our ability to quickly understand, analyze and explain the election particularly at this moment, when the credibility of election results reporting, data and analysis is more important than ever before.

The Elections Data Analytics team will be joined by Nate Cohn, our chief political analyst, and other members of The Upshot to initially focus on two of the biggest hallmarks of our elections coverage: our public opinion surveys and the statistical models that power the Needle. This work will also bolster The Timess ability to call races when necessary.

Read more:

Announcing the Election Data Analytics team - The New York Times Company

Read More..

UBIX LABS AND SAPPHIRE PARTNER TO PROVIDE ADVANCED ANALYTICS TO DRIVE INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATION – PR Newswire

This partnership will bring UBIX Advanced Intelligence to Sapphire's 1250 Customers

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif., Sept. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- UBIX Labs, the Advanced Analytics for Business company, today announced a strategic partnership with Sapphire, the leading provider of frictionless Digital Operations Transformation software and services to over 1250 mid-market to lower-enterprise companies, to simplify and accelerate the use of Advanced Analytics and Data Science to boost and accelerate the outcomes delivered by digital operations transformation.

This partnership will bring UBIX Advanced Intelligence to Sapphire's 1250 Customers

Sapphire is the leading provider of multi-platform digital operations transformation in the UK and US and enables business to leverage the power of cloud digital platforms to transform all key business operating functions, from finance to supply chain, asset management to digital operations, and is a leading partner of SAP, ServiceNow, HxGN EAM, Infor SunSystems, and Automation Anywhere.

"Digital operations transformation is the new engine room of business differentiation and the unlimited supply of energy that enables greater agility, intelligence, speed, productivity, and efficiency and competitive advantage. UBIX provides that power. In a world where being 1% more intelligent, 1% more efficient, or 1% more predictive in running your business can deliver an exponential impact, UBIX drives that advantage" commented Chris Gabriel, Chief Strategy Officer at Sapphire.

"UBIX Labs and their rapid to deploy advanced data platform will turbo boost our customers' ability to make intelligent data driven decisions, without the huge dependencies, specialist AI and machine learning skills or complex technologies can sometimes demand. We now have a portfolio of data analytics and data science services that make us uniquely positioned to become the strategic data partner for our customers."

UBIX is an industry leading Advanced Analytics company that enables organizations of all sizes to leverage existing Customer Analytics, ERP & CRM infrastructure, blending transactional and external data to create new insights that drive intelligent action. With UBIX, business users and subject matter experts can quickly and affordably solve challenging analytics problems that are not possible without data science and AI. UBIX handles a wide variety of use cases including intelligent migration, front office, and back-office solutions.

"Through our relationship with Sapphire, more organizations can now exploit the power of UBIX for Intelligent Migration to the Cloud, preserving critical data assets and empowering an Advanced Analytics strategy," said John Burke, CEO of UBIX. "We know that leveraging UBIX's Advanced Analytics Platform, Sapphire can further strengthen its market position and emerge as a leader in delivering Intelligent Enterprise Solutions."

Together, the partnership will see Sapphire incorporate the UBIX Labs Platform into an extended offer across all its digital operating platform portfolio, and eventually lead to a Sapphire white labeled AI Services Platform powered by UBIX Labs.

UBIX is privately funded and based in Orange County, CA. For more information, visit http://www.ubixlabs.com.

Media Contact:Jack Borie760-331-9470[emailprotected]

SOURCE UBIX

Read more:

UBIX LABS AND SAPPHIRE PARTNER TO PROVIDE ADVANCED ANALYTICS TO DRIVE INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATION - PR Newswire

Read More..

McGill welcomes Eric Kolaczyk as Director of the Computational and Data Systems Initiative – McGill Reporter – McGill Reporter

The Faculty of Science has appointed Mathematics and Statistics Professor Eric Kolaczyk to lead the Computational and Data Systems Initiative (CDSI), a major step forward in the Universitys strategic effort to put the power of data-intensive analytical methods at the fingertips of researchers across the McGill community.

Kolaczyk joins McGill from Boston University, where he led the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing, a centre noted for its success in bringing together faculty with expertise in mathematics, computing and data sciences. Among his achievements, Kolaczyk fostered the development of year-long research convergence exercises on topics like AI and health, machine learning for chemistry and materials science, continuous monitoring systems for electronic-mobile health, and simulation of human systems.

Large-scale data and computational methods are key elements of research in almost all parts of the Faculty of Science, and the establishment of the CDSI represents an important step towards facilitating truly interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in this important area, said Bruce Lennox, Dean of Science.

We are delighted that Eric has agreed to join McGill to lead this effort. As well as being a highly respected researcher in statistics, he brings a huge amount of expertise in the coordination of initiatives in data science and computation

Kolaczyks appointment opens the way for the formal launch of the CDSI, with an inauguration event to take place on September 20. Over the coming year, the CDSI will expand its successful workshop program, open a Consulting Core Facility (CCF) to provide researchers with tailored advice on applied statistics, computing methodologies and data analytics, and run several research convergence exercises inviting stakeholders on campus to identify and pursue opportunities of unique strength and potential impact.

The McGill Reporter spoke with Eric Kolaczyk about his new role:

My coming to McGill is the result of an almost-frighteningly perfect convergence (from my perspective!) of time and place. My partner being French-Canadian, with family in the area, Ive long watched the academic and research landscape around Montreal with a deep respect and admiration.

The CDSI has an initial emphasis on three inter-related pillars convergent research, consulting, and training. I believe I bring useful experiences in designing programs and supporting infrastructure in all three areas. But building out the right version of these things for the McGill community with the McGill community is really the biggest draw. That and the fact that I love starting new things with excellent people!

I think its difficult to think of a group or endeavour that data science does not today at least touch, if not fundamentally impact, whether in academia, business, industry, or government. Data-driven, computing-enabled systems are everywhere around us, and data science is about the collection, wrangling, analysis, visualization, interpretation, and communication of the data as relevant to goals ranging from the mundane to the profound.

Ive only just arrived and almost every day in my conversations I continue to learn about some additional person, project, or group doing something of which I wasnt aware. So, my sense of McGills strengths in this space are far from complete. The quality of the students is superb, of course, which is a huge motivator for developing programs at CDSI that will enable them to successfully pursue their dreams and passions where computing and data are involved (and theyre involved in almost everything these days).

At the same time, Im aware of research strengths in core areas like AI and machine learning, Bayesian statistics and uncertainty quantification, computing systems, and biostatistics and epidemiology. And Im aware of similar strengths across a wide spectrum of domain areas, ranging from data science for understanding multiple aspects of the human-Earth system (including biodiversity, climate, and sustainability, among others) to data science for biomedicine. I look forward to continuing to learn more.

I think our biggest opportunities and where CDSI can contribute most impactfully is where computing and data and systems meet. For example, where computer vision, robotics, and geography and earth sciences meet through drone-based measurement systems and machine learning prediction algorithms for environmental forecasting. Or where causal statistical inference, reinforcement learning, distributed computing, electronic medical records, and doctors meet to help provide improved medical care in remote and under-served populations. And where artificial intelligence, data engineering around social media platforms, and experts in communications, marketing, and relevant domain areas combine to combat misinformation.

Reach out to us! Sign up for our mailing list, follow us on Twitter, or even just send me an email or drop by during my directors office hours. Make sure youre aware of the training we have planned, come to the CCF for consulting, and join in a research convergence exercise. And if you see an opportunity that you think CDSI can help the McGill community leverage thats not on our radar, please let us know.

Learn more about the CDSIs mission and how it can support your research at the launch event on September 20. Details.

Originally posted here:

McGill welcomes Eric Kolaczyk as Director of the Computational and Data Systems Initiative - McGill Reporter - McGill Reporter

Read More..

Scalability: The Key to High, Long-Term Analytics ROI – RTInsights

To deliver strong ROI, analytics capabilities need to be able to scale. But enabling scalability across highly tailored use cases isnt always easy.

Across the modern enterprise, every team wants something slightly different from analytics. They have their own goals, own data, and own KPIsleading many teams to create and deploy their own analytics solutions with available resources.

Over time, thats created a highly fragmented analytics landscape across many organizations. Siloed solutions stagnate within individual teams and lines of business, creating an environment where:

The missing piece in environments and organizations like these is scalability. When teams push ahead with their own siloed analytics projects, the solutions they create cant scalemaking it far harder to realize high ROI from them.

Unfortunately, theres one big reason why that all-important piece is still missing across many enterprise analytics landscapes: Its tough to enable if you dont have the right strategy and support.

Three main challenges limit organizations ability to scale their analytics solutions and investments today:

#1) Disparate and inconsistent data

When an individual team builds its own analytics model, it builds around its datadesigning models that make the most of the available data sets, whatever their type or quality may be. Models created for and driven by those data sets become incredibly tough to use in different contexts, where the same type or quality of data isnt available. Theres no interoperability, so the models cant be scaled elsewhere.

#2) Low visibility and understanding across silos

If one team doesnt know about an adjacent teams existing analytics investments, they cant leverage and customize them for their own use. Siloed creation and management of analytics capabilities create cultures where people simply arent aware of where and how the organization has already invested in analyticsleading to significant duplication of effort and increased costs for the enterprise.

#3) Scalability is hard to build in retroactively

When a team identifies a new internal use case for analytics, they rarely stop to ask, how could other teams or markets benefit from what were creating? As a result, solutions are built with a single purpose in mind, making it difficult for other teams to utilize them across slightly different use cases. Instead of building a widely usable foundation, then customizing it for each team, solutions are designed for a single team at a core level, making them tough to repurpose or apply elsewhere.

See also: Moving to the Cloud for Better Data Analytics and Business Insights

Organizations need to fundamentally change how they think about, design, and manage analytics capabilities to overcome those challenges and unlock the full ROI of highly scalable analytics models and solutions.

Here are four practices helping organizations do that effectively:

Start with a standardized foundation

Each team across your organization needs bespoke, tailored capabilities to get the most from analytics. But that doesnt mean they have to build their own solutions from the ground up.

By having a centralized team create a customizable, standardized foundation for analytics, teams can create exactly what they need in a consistent way that enables interoperability and sharing of models and insights across the enterprise.

With an analytics center of excellence (CoE), for example, a centralized team can create everything each team needs for their unique use cases and add value for that team by including insights and capabilities from which adjacent teams have seen value.

Bring data science and data engineering closer together

Even today, many still view analytics as the exclusive domain of data scientists. But, if you want to enable the scalability of analytics models, data engineers need to be involved in the conversation and decision-making.

Data scientists may build the models and algorithms that generate analytical insights, but data engineers ensure a consistent, interoperable data foundation to power those models. By working closely together, they can align their decisions and design choices to help scale analytical capabilities across the business.

Zoom out and get some external perspective on whats possible

Suppose you want analytics investments to deliver broad value across your organization. In that case, your projects should start with a broad view of what analytics could help you achieve across multiple use cases. Practically, that means:

Continuously learn and improve.

Analytics always requires some degree of experimentation, and you cant realistically expect every single use case to deliver high long-term value. But, even if theyre unsuccessful, organizations should take steps to learn from each of them.

Within an enterprise, someone needs to take responsibility for learning from each use case explored. That person or team can then apply those lessons across new use cases and use them to develop assets and modules that can be reused across geographies and domains, extending, and increasing the value they deliver to the business.

See original here:

Scalability: The Key to High, Long-Term Analytics ROI - RTInsights

Read More..