Introduction To Data Technologies

Providing key information on how to work with research data, Introduction to Data Technologies presents ideas and techniques for performing critical, behind-the-scenes tasks that take up so much time and effort yet typically receive little attention in formal education. With a focus on computational tools, the book shows readers how to improve thei

An introductory textbook offering a low barrier entry to data science; the hands-on approach will appeal to students from a range of disciplines.

This book reflects the author’s years of hands-on experience as an academic and practitioner. It is primarily intended for executives, managers and practitioners who want to redefine the way they think about artificial intelligence (AI) and other exponential technologies. Accordingly the book, which is structured as a collection of largely self-contained articles, includes both general strategic reflections and detailed sector-specific information. More concretely, it shares insights into what it means to work with AI and how to do it more efficiently; what it means to hire a data scientist and what new roles there are in the field; how to use AI in specific industries such as finance or insurance; how AI interacts with other technologies such as blockchain; and, in closing, a review of the use of AI in venture capital, as well as a snapshot of acceleration programs for AI companies.

Encompassing a broad range of forms and sources of data, this textbook introduces data systems through a progressive presentation. Introduction to Data Systems covers data acquisition starting with local files, then progresses to data acquired from relational databases, from REST APIs and through web scraping. It teaches data forms/formats from tidy data to relationally defined sets of tables to hierarchical structure like XML and JSON using data models to convey the structure, operations, and constraints of each data form. The starting point of the book is a foundation in Python programming found in introductory computer science classes or short courses on the language, and so does not require prerequisites of data structures, algorithms, or other courses. This makes the material accessible to students early in their educational career and equips them with understanding and skills that can be applied in computer science, data science/data analytics, and information technology programs as well as for internships and research experiences. This book is accessible to a wide variety of students. By drawing together content normally spread across upper level computer science courses, it offers a single source providing the essentials for data science practitioners. In our increasingly data-centric world, students from all domains will benefit from the “data-aptitude” built by the material in this book.

The data lake is a daring new approach for harnessing the power of big data technology and providing convenient self-service capabilities. But is it right for your company? This book is based on discussions with practitioners and executives from more than a hundred organizations, ranging from data-driven companies such as Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook, to governments and traditional corporate enterprises. You’ll learn what a data lake is, why enterprises need one, and how to build one successfully with the best practices in this book. Alex Gorelik, CTO and founder of Waterline Data, explains why old systems and processes can no longer support data needs in the enterprise. Then, in a collection of essays about data lake implementation, you’ll examine data lake initiatives, analytic projects, experiences, and best practices from data experts working in various industries. Get a succinct introduction to data warehousing, big data, and data science Learn various paths enterprises take to build a data lake Explore how to build a self-service model and best practices for providing analysts access to the data Use different methods for architecting your data lake Discover ways to implement a data lake from experts in different industries

This textbook provides a unique lens through which the myriad of existing Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can be easily comprehended and appreciated. It answers key privacy-centered questions with clear and detailed explanations. Why is privacy important? How and why is your privacy being eroded and what risks can this pose for you? What are some tools for protecting your privacy in online environments? How can these tools be understood, compared, and evaluated? What steps can you take to gain more control over your personal data? This book addresses the above questions by focusing on three fundamental elements: It introduces a simple classification of PETs that allows their similarities and differences to be highlighted and analyzed; It describes several specific PETs in each class, including both foundational technologies and important recent additions to the field; It explains how to use this classification to determine which privacy goals are actually achievable in a given real-world environment. Once the goals are known, this allows the most appropriate PETs to be selected in order to add the desired privacy protection to the target environment. To illustrate, the book examines the use of PETs in conjunction with various security technologies, with the legal infrastructure, and with communication and computing technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Machine Learning (ML). Designed as an introductory textbook on PETs, this book is essential reading for graduate-level students in computer science and related fields, prospective PETs researchers, privacy advocates, and anyone interested in technologies to protect privacy in online environments.

Making Big Data Work: Real-World Use Cases and Examples, Practical Code, Detailed Solutions Large-scale data analysis is now vitally important to virtually every business. Mobile and social technologies are generating massive datasets; distributed cloud computing offers the resources to store and analyze them; and professionals have radically new technologies at their command, including NoSQL databases. Until now, however, most books on “Big Data” have been little more than business polemics or product catalogs. Data Just Right is different: It’s a completely practical and indispensable guide for every Big Data decision-maker, implementer, and strategist. Michael Manoochehri, a former Google engineer and data hacker, writes for professionals who need practical solutions that can be implemented with limited resources and time. Drawing on his extensive experience, he helps you focus on building applications, rather than infrastructure, because that’s where you can derive the most value. Manoochehri shows how to address each of today’s key Big Data use cases in a cost-effective way by combining technologies in hybrid solutions. You’ll find expert approaches to managing massive datasets, visualizing data, building data pipelines and dashboards, choosing tools for statistical analysis, and more. Throughout, the author demonstrates techniques using many of today’s leading data analysis tools, including Hadoop, Hive, Shark, R, Apache Pig, Mahout, and Google BigQuery. Coverage includes Mastering the four guiding principles of Big Data success—and avoiding common pitfalls Emphasizing collaboration and avoiding problems with siloed data Hosting and sharing multi-terabyte datasets efficiently and economically “Building for infinity” to support rapid growth Developing a NoSQL Web app with Redis to collect crowd-sourced data Running distributed queries over massive datasets with Hadoop, Hive, and Shark Building a data dashboard with Google BigQuery Exploring large datasets with advanced visualization Implementing efficient pipelines for transforming immense amounts of data Automating complex processing with Apache Pig and the Cascading Java library Applying machine learning to classify, recommend, and predict incoming information Using R to perform statistical analysis on massive datasets Building highly efficient analytics workflows with Python and Pandas Establishing sensible purchasing strategies: when to build, buy, or outsource Previewing emerging trends and convergences in scalable data technologies and the evolving role of the Data Scientist

Digital, cloud, and artificial intelligence (AI) have disrupted how we use data. This disruption has changed the way we need to provision, curate, and publish data for the multiple use cases in today's technology-driven environment. This text will cover how to design, develop, and evolve a data platform for all the uses of enterprise data needed in today's digital organization. This book focuses on explaining what a data platform is, what value it provides, how is it engineered, and how to deploy a data platform and support organization. In this context, Introduction to Data Platforms reviews the current requirements for data in the digital age and quantifies the use cases; discusses the evolution of data over the past twenty years, which is a core driver of the modern data platform; defines what a data platform is and defines the architectural components and layers of a data platform; provides the architectural layers or capabilities of a data platform; reviews cloud- and commercial-software vendors that populate the data-platform space; provides a step-by-step approach to engineering, deploying, supporting, and evolving a data-platform environment; provides a step-by-step approach to migrating legacy data warehouses, data marts, and data lakes/sandboxes to a data platform; and reviews organizational structures for managing data platform environments.