Hector Cuesta – författare

For small businesses, analyzing the information contained in their data using open source technology could be game-changing. All you need is some basic programming and mathematical skills to do just that.Key FeaturesExplore how to analyze your data in various innovative ways and turn them into insightLearn to use the D3.js visualization tool for exploratory data analysisUnderstand how to work with graphs and social data analysisDiscover how to perform advanced query techniques and run MapReduce on MongoDBBook DescriptionPlenty of small businesses face big amounts of data but lack the internal skills to support quantitative analysis. Understanding how to harness the power of data analysis using the latest open source technology can lead them to providing better customer service, the visualization of customer needs, or even the ability to obtain fresh insights about the performance of previous products. Practical Data Analysis is a book ideal for home and small business users who want to slice and dice the data they have on hand with minimum hassle.Practical Data Analysis is a hands-on guide to understanding the nature of your data and turn it into insight. It will introduce you to the use of machine learning techniques, social networks analytics, and econometrics to help your clients get insights about the pool of data they have at hand. Performing data preparation and processing over several kinds of data such as text, images, graphs, documents, and time series will also be covered.Practical Data Analysis presents a detailed exploration of the current work in data analysis through self-contained projects. First you will explore the basics of data preparation and transformation through OpenRefine. Then you will get started with exploratory data analysis using the D3js visualization framework. You will also be introduced to some of the machine learning techniques such as, classification, regression, and clusterization through practical projects such as spam classification, predicting gold prices, and finding clusters in your Facebook friends' network. You will learn how to solve problems in text classification, simulation, time series forecast, social media, and MapReduce through detailed projects. Finally you will work with large amounts of Twitter data using MapReduce to perform a sentiment analysis implemented in Python and MongoDB. Practical Data Analysis contains a combination of carefully selected algorithms and data scrubbing that enables you to turn your data into insight.What you will learnWork with data to get meaningful results from your data analysis projects Visualize your data to find trends and correlations Build your own image similarity search engine Learn how to forecast numerical values from time series data Create an interactive visualization for your social media graphExplore the MapReduce framework in MongoDB Create interactive simulations with D3jsWho this book is forThis book is for developers, small business users, and analysts who want to implement data analysis and visualization for their company in a practical way. You need no prior experience with data analysis or data processing; however, basic knowledge of programming, statistics, and linear algebra is assumed.

A practical guide to obtaining, transforming, exploring, and analyzing data using Python, MongoDB, and Apache Spark

About This Book

Learn to use various data analysis tools and algorithms to classify, cluster, visualize, simulate, and forecast your dataApply Machine Learning algorithms to different kinds of data such as social networks, time series, and imagesA hands-on guide to understanding the nature of data and how to turn it into insight

Who This Book Is For

This book is for developers who want to implement data analysis and data-driven algorithms in a practical way. It is also suitable for those without a background in data analysis or data processing. Basic knowledge of Python programming, statistics, and linear algebra is assumed.

What You Will Learn

Acquire, format, and visualize your dataBuild an image-similarity search engineGenerate meaningful visualizations anyone can understandGet started with analyzing social network graphsFind out how to implement sentiment text analysisInstall data analysis tools such as Pandas, MongoDB, and Apache SparkGet to grips with Apache SparkImplement machine learning algorithms such as classification or forecasting

In Detail

Beyond buzzwords like Big Data or Data Science, there are a great opportunities to innovate in many businesses using data analysis to get data-driven products. Data analysis involves asking many questions about data in order to discover insights and generate value for a product or a service.

This book explains the basic data algorithms without the theoretical jargon, and you''ll get hands-on turning data into insights using machine learning techniques. We will perform data-driven innovation processing for several types of data such as text, Images, social network graphs, documents, and time series, showing you how to implement large data processing with MongoDB and Apache Spark.

Style and approach

This is a hands-on guide to data analysis and data processing. The concrete examples are explained with simple code and accessible data.