Book Image

Data Science Projects with Python - Second Edition

By : Stephen Klosterman
Book Image

Data Science Projects with Python - Second Edition

By: Stephen Klosterman

Overview of this book

If data is the new oil, then machine learning is the drill. As companies gain access to ever-increasing quantities of raw data, the ability to deliver state-of-the-art predictive models that support business decision-making becomes more and more valuable. In this book, you’ll work on an end-to-end project based around a realistic data set and split up into bite-sized practical exercises. This creates a case-study approach that simulates the working conditions you’ll experience in real-world data science projects. You’ll learn how to use key Python packages, including pandas, Matplotlib, and scikit-learn, and master the process of data exploration and data processing, before moving on to fitting, evaluating, and tuning algorithms such as regularized logistic regression and random forest. Now in its second edition, this book will take you through the end-to-end process of exploring data and delivering machine learning models. Updated for 2021, this edition includes brand new content on XGBoost, SHAP values, algorithmic fairness, and the ethical concerns of deploying a model in the real world. By the end of this data science book, you’ll have the skills, understanding, and confidence to build your own machine learning models and gain insights from real data.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)
Preface

Python and the Anaconda Package Management System

In this book, we will use the Python programming language. Python is a top language for data science and is one of the fastest-growing programming languages. A commonly cited reason for Python's popularity is that it is easy to learn. If you have Python experience, that's great; however, if you have experience with other languages, such as C, Matlab, or R, you shouldn't have much trouble using Python. You should be familiar with the general constructs of computer programming to get the most out of this book. Examples of such constructs are for loops and if statements that guide the control flow of a program. No matter what language you have used, you are likely familiar with these constructs, which you will also find in Python.

A key feature of Python that is different from some other languages is that it is zero-indexed; in other words, the first element of an ordered collection has an index of 0. Python also...