Computational Complexity


Christos H. Papadimitriou - 1993
    It offers a comprehensive and accessible treatment of the theory of algorithms and complexity—the elegant body of concepts and methods developed by computer scientists over the past 30 years for studying the performance and limitations of computer algorithms. The book is self-contained in that it develops all necessary mathematical prerequisites from such diverse fields such as computability, logic, number theory and probability.

Statistical Analysis with Excel for Dummies


Joseph Schmuller - 2005
    mean, margin of error, standard deviation, permutations, and correlations-all using Excel

The Site Reliability Workbook: Practical Ways to Implement SRE


Betsy Beyer - 2018
    Now, Google engineers who worked on that bestseller introduce The Site Reliability Workbook, a hands-on companion that uses concrete examples to show you how to put SRE principles and practices to work in your environment.This new workbook not only combines practical examples from Google's experiences, but also provides case studies from Google's Cloud Platform customers who underwent this journey. Evernote, The Home Depot, The New York Times, and other companies outline hard-won experiences of what worked for them and what didn't.Dive into this workbook and learn how to flesh out your own SRE practice, no matter what size your company is.You'll learn:How to run reliable services in environments you don't completely control--like cloudPractical applications of how to create, monitor, and run your services via Service Level ObjectivesHow to convert existing ops teams to SRE--including how to dig out of operational overloadMethods for starting SRE from either greenfield or brownfield

Big Data: Principles and best practices of scalable realtime data systems


Nathan Marz - 2012
    As scale and demand increase, so does Complexity. Fortunately, scalability and simplicity are not mutually exclusive—rather than using some trendy technology, a different approach is needed. Big data systems use many machines working in parallel to store and process data, which introduces fundamental challenges unfamiliar to most developers.Big Data shows how to build these systems using an architecture that takes advantage of clustered hardware along with new tools designed specifically to capture and analyze web-scale data. It describes a scalable, easy to understand approach to big data systems that can be built and run by a small team. Following a realistic example, this book guides readers through the theory of big data systems, how to use them in practice, and how to deploy and operate them once they're built.Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

Kafka: The Definitive Guide: Real-Time Data and Stream Processing at Scale


Neha Narkhede - 2017
    And how to move all of this data becomes nearly as important as the data itself. If you� re an application architect, developer, or production engineer new to Apache Kafka, this practical guide shows you how to use this open source streaming platform to handle real-time data feeds.Engineers from Confluent and LinkedIn who are responsible for developing Kafka explain how to deploy production Kafka clusters, write reliable event-driven microservices, and build scalable stream-processing applications with this platform. Through detailed examples, you� ll learn Kafka� s design principles, reliability guarantees, key APIs, and architecture details, including the replication protocol, the controller, and the storage layer.Understand publish-subscribe messaging and how it fits in the big data ecosystem.Explore Kafka producers and consumers for writing and reading messagesUnderstand Kafka patterns and use-case requirements to ensure reliable data deliveryGet best practices for building data pipelines and applications with KafkaManage Kafka in production, and learn to perform monitoring, tuning, and maintenance tasksLearn the most critical metrics among Kafka� s operational measurementsExplore how Kafka� s stream delivery capabilities make it a perfect source for stream processing systems

Data Science For Dummies


Lillian Pierson - 2014
    Data Science For Dummies is the perfect starting point for IT professionals and students interested in making sense of their organization’s massive data sets and applying their findings to real-world business scenarios. From uncovering rich data sources to managing large amounts of data within hardware and software limitations, ensuring consistency in reporting, merging various data sources, and beyond, you’ll develop the know-how you need to effectively interpret data and tell a story that can be understood by anyone in your organization. Provides a background in data science fundamentals before moving on to working with relational databases and unstructured data and preparing your data for analysis Details different data visualization techniques that can be used to showcase and summarize your data Explains both supervised and unsupervised machine learning, including regression, model validation, and clustering techniques Includes coverage of big data processing tools like MapReduce, Hadoop, Dremel, Storm, and Spark It’s a big, big data world out there – let Data Science For Dummies help you harness its power and gain a competitive edge for your organization.

Python for Everybody: Exploring Data in Python 3


Charles Severance - 2016
    You can think of the Python programming language as your tool to solve data problems that are beyond the capability of a spreadsheet.Python is an easy to use and easy to learn programming language that is freely available on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux computers. So once you learn Python you can use it for the rest of your career without needing to purchase any software.This book uses the Python 3 language. The earlier Python 2 version of this book is titled "Python for Informatics: Exploring Information".

The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization


Alberto Cairo - 2011
    With the right tools, we can start to make sense of all this data to see patterns and trends that would otherwise be invisible to us. By transforming numbers into graphical shapes, we allow readers to understand the stories those numbers hide. In this practical introduction to understanding and using information graphics, you'll learn how to use data visualizations as tools to see beyond lists of numbers and variables and achieve new insights into the complex world around us. Regardless of the kind of data you're working with-business, science, politics, sports, or even your own personal finances-this book will show you how to use statistical charts, maps, and explanation diagrams to spot the stories in the data and learn new things from it.You'll also get to peek into the creative process of some of the world's most talented designers and visual journalists, including Conde Nast Traveler's John Grimwade, National Geographic Magazine's Fernando Baptista, The New York Times' Steve Duenes, The Washington Post's Hannah Fairfield, Hans Rosling of the Gapminder Foundation, Stanford's Geoff McGhee, and European superstars Moritz Stefaner, Jan Willem Tulp, Stefanie Posavec, and Gregor Aisch. The book also includes a DVD-ROM containing over 90 minutes of video lessons that expand on core concepts explained within the book and includes even more inspirational information graphics from the world's leading designers.The first book to offer a broad, hands-on introduction to information graphics and visualization, The Functional Art reveals:- Why data visualization should be thought of as "functional art" rather than fine art - How to use color, type, and other graphic tools to make your information graphics more effective, not just better looking - The science of how our brains perceive and remember information - Best practices for creating interactive information graphics - A comprehensive look at the creative process behind successful information graphics - An extensive gallery of inspirational work from the world's top designers and visual artistsOn the DVD-ROM: In this introductory video course on information graphics, Alberto Cairo goes into greater detail with even more visual examples of how to create effective information graphics that function as practical tools for aiding perception. You'll learn how to: incorporate basic design principles in your visualizations, create simple interfaces for interactive graphics, and choose the appropriate type of graphic forms for your data. Cairo also deconstructs successful information graphics from The New York Times and National Geographic magazine with sketches and images not shown in the book.

Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism


Safiya Umoja Noble - 2018
    But, if you type in "white girls," the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about "why black women are so sassy" or "why black women are so angry" presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society.In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance - operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond - understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.

Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage


Douglas B. Laney - 2017
    They report to the board on the health of their workforce, their financials, their customers, and their partnerships, but rarely the health of their information assets. Corporations typically exhibit greater discipline in tracking and accounting for their office furniture than their data. Infonomics is the theory, study, and discipline of asserting economic significance to information. It strives to apply both economic and asset management principles and practices to the valuation, handling, and deployment of information assets. This book specifically shows: CEOs and business leaders how to more fully wield information as a corporate asset CIOs how to improve the flow and accessibility of information CFOs how to help their organizations measure the actual and latent value in their information assets. More directly, this book is for the burgeoning force of chief data officers (CDOs) and other information and analytics leaders in their valiant struggle to help their organizations become more infosavvy. Author Douglas Laney has spent years researching and developing Infonomics and advising organizations on the infinite opportunities to monetize, manage, and measure information. This book delivers a set of new ideas, frameworks, evidence, and even approaches adapted from other disciplines on how to administer, wield, and understand the value of information. Infonomics can help organizations not only to better develop, sell, and market their offerings, but to transform their organizations altogether.

Data Science for Business: What you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking


Foster Provost - 2013
    This guide also helps you understand the many data-mining techniques in use today.Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also discover how to think data-analytically, and fully appreciate how data science methods can support business decision-making.Understand how data science fits in your organization—and how you can use it for competitive advantageTreat data as a business asset that requires careful investment if you’re to gain real valueApproach business problems data-analytically, using the data-mining process to gather good data in the most appropriate wayLearn general concepts for actually extracting knowledge from dataApply data science principles when interviewing data science job candidates

Deep Learning


Ian Goodfellow - 2016
    Because the computer gathers knowledge from experience, there is no need for a human computer operator to formally specify all the knowledge that the computer needs. The hierarchy of concepts allows the computer to learn complicated concepts by building them out of simpler ones; a graph of these hierarchies would be many layers deep. This book introduces a broad range of topics in deep learning.The text offers mathematical and conceptual background, covering relevant concepts in linear algebra, probability theory and information theory, numerical computation, and machine learning. It describes deep learning techniques used by practitioners in industry, including deep feedforward networks, regularization, optimization algorithms, convolutional networks, sequence modeling, and practical methodology; and it surveys such applications as natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, online recommendation systems, bioinformatics, and videogames. Finally, the book offers research perspectives, covering such theoretical topics as linear factor models, autoencoders, representation learning, structured probabilistic models, Monte Carlo methods, the partition function, approximate inference, and deep generative models.Deep Learning can be used by undergraduate or graduate students planning careers in either industry or research, and by software engineers who want to begin using deep learning in their products or platforms. A website offers supplementary material for both readers and instructors.

Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations


Scott Berinato - 2016
    No longer. A new generation of tools and massive amounts of available data make it easy for anyone to create visualizations that communicate ideas far more effectively than generic spreadsheet charts ever could.What’s more, building good charts is quickly becoming a need-to-have skill for managers. If you’re not doing it, other managers are, and they’re getting noticed for it and getting credit for contributing to your company’s success.In Good Charts, dataviz maven Scott Berinato provides an essential guide to how visualization works and how to use this new language to impress and persuade. Dataviz today is where spreadsheets and word processors were in the early 1980s—on the cusp of changing how we work. Berinato lays out a system for thinking visually and building better charts through a process of talking, sketching, and prototyping.This book is much more than a set of static rules for making visualizations. It taps into both well-established and cutting-edge research in visual perception and neuroscience, as well as the emerging field of visualization science, to explore why good charts (and bad ones) create “feelings behind our eyes.” Along the way, Berinato also includes many engaging vignettes of dataviz pros, illustrating the ideas in practice.Good Charts will help you turn plain, uninspiring charts that merely present information into smart, effective visualizations that powerfully convey ideas.

Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving


V. Anton Spraul - 2012
    In this one-of-a-kind text, author V. Anton Spraul breaks down the ways that programmers solve problems and teaches you what other introductory books often ignore: how to Think Like a Programmer. Each chapter tackles a single programming concept, like classes, pointers, and recursion, and open-ended exercises throughout challenge you to apply your knowledge. You'll also learn how to:Split problems into discrete components to make them easier to solve Make the most of code reuse with functions, classes, and libraries Pick the perfect data structure for a particular job Master more advanced programming tools like recursion and dynamic memory Organize your thoughts and develop strategies to tackle particular types of problems Although the book's examples are written in C++, the creative problem-solving concepts they illustrate go beyond any particular language; in fact, they often reach outside the realm of computer science. As the most skillful programmers know, writing great code is a creative art—and the first step in creating your masterpiece is learning to Think Like a Programmer.

Data Feminism


Catherine D’Ignazio - 2020
    It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics—one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought.Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever “speak for themselves.”Data Feminism offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But Data Feminism is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.