Book Image

Data Science Using Python and R

By : Chantal D. Larose, Daniel T. Larose
Book Image

Data Science Using Python and R

By: Chantal D. Larose, Daniel T. Larose

Overview of this book

Data science is hot. Bloomberg named a data scientist as the ‘hottest job in America’. Python and R are the top two open-source data science tools using which you can produce hands-on solutions to real-world business problems, using state-of-the-art techniques. Each chapter in the book presents step-by-step instructions and walkthroughs for solving data science problems using Python and R. You’ll learn how to prepare data, perform exploratory data analysis, and prepare to model the data. As you progress, you’ll explore what are decision trees and how to use them. You’ll also learn about model evaluation, misclassification costs, naïve Bayes classification, and neural networks. The later chapters provide comprehensive information about clustering, regression modeling, dimension reduction, and association rules mining. The book also throws light on exciting new topics, such as random forests and general linear models. The book emphasizes data-driven error costs to enhance profitability, which avoids the common pitfalls that may cost a company millions of dollars. By the end of this book, you’ll have enough knowledge and confidence to start providing solutions to data science problems using R and Python.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
17
INDEX
18
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

1.3 THE DATA SCIENCE METHODOLOGY

We follow the Data Science Methodology (DSM),4 which helps the analyst keep track of which phase of the analysis he or she is performing. Figure 1.1 illustrates the adaptive and iterative nature of the DSM, using the following phases:

  1. Problem Understanding Phase. How often have teams worked hard to solve a problem, only to find out later that they solved the wrong problem? Further, how often have the marketing team and the analytics team not been on the same page? This phase attempts to avoid these pitfalls.
    1. First, clearly enunciate the project objectives,
    2. Then, translate these objectives into the formulation of a problem that can be solved using data science.
  2. Data Preparation Phase. Raw data from data repositories is seldom ready for the algorithms straight out of the box. Instead, it needs to be cleaned or “prepared for analysis.” When analysts first examine the data, they uncover the inevitable problems with data quality that always...