Preface

Principles of Data Science bridges mathematics, programming, and business analysis, empowering you to confidently pose and address complex data questions and construct effective machine learning pipelines. This book will equip you with the tools you need to transform abstract concepts and raw statistics into actionable insights.

Starting with cleaning and preparation, you’ll explore effective data mining strategies and techniques before moving on to building a holistic picture of how every piece of the data science puzzle fits together. Throughout the book, you’ll discover statistical models with which you can control and navigate even the densest or sparsest of datasets and learn how to create powerful visualizations that communicate the stories hidden in your data.

With a focus on application, this edition covers advanced transfer learning and pre-trained models for NLP and vision tasks. You’ll get to grips with advanced techniques for mitigating algorithmic bias in data as well as models and addressing model and data drift. Finally, you’ll explore medium-level data governance, including data provenance, privacy, and deletion request handling.

By the end of this data science book, you’ll have learned the fundamentals of computational mathematics and statistics, all while navigating the intricacies of modern machine learning and large pre-trained models such as GPT and BERT.