Statistics With Julia

This monograph uses the Julia language to guide the reader through an exploration of the fundamental concepts of probability and statistics, all with a view of mastering machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence. The text does not require any prior statistical knowledge and only assumes a basic understanding of programming and mathematical notation. It is accessible to practitioners and researchers in data science, machine learning, bio-statistics, finance, or engineering who may wish to solidify their knowledge of probability and statistics. The book progresses through ten independent chapters starting with an introduction of Julia, and moving through basic probability, distributions, statistical inference, regression analysis, machine learning methods, and the use of Monte Carlo simulation for dynamic stochastic models. Ultimately this text introduces the Julia programming language as a computational tool, uniquely addressing end-users rather than developers. It makes heavy use of over 200 code examples to illustrate dozens of key statistical concepts. The Julia code, written in a simple format with parameters that can be easily modified, is also available for download from the book’s associated GitHub repository online. See what co-creators of the Julia language are saying about the book: Professor Alan Edelman, MIT: With “Statistics with Julia”, Yoni and Hayden have written an easy to read, well organized, modern introduction to statistics. The code may be looked at, and understood on the static pages of a book, or even better, when running live on a computer. Everything you need is here in one nicely written self-contained reference. Dr. Viral Shah, CEO of Julia Computing: Yoni and Hayden provide a modern way to learn statistics with the Julia programming language. This book has been perfected through iteration over several semesters in the classroom. It prepares the reader with two complementary skills - statistical reasoning with hands on experience and working with large datasets through training in Julia.

A wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government's job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data, Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system.

After covering the importance of Julia to the data science community and several essential data science principles, we start with the basics including how to install Julia and its powerful libraries. Many examples are provided as we illustrate how to leverage each Julia command, dataset, and function. Specialized script packages are introduced and described. Hands-on problems representative of those commonly encountered throughout the data science pipeline are provided, and we guide you in the use of Julia in solving them using published datasets. Many of these scenarios make use of existing packages and built-in functions, as we cover: An overview of the data science pipeline along with an example illustrating the key points, implemented in Julia Options for Julia IDEs Programming structures and functions Engineering tasks, such as importing, cleaning, formatting and storing data, as well as performing data preprocessing Data visualization and some simple yet powerful statistics for data exploration purposes Dimensionality reduction and feature evaluation Machine learning methods, ranging from unsupervised (different types of clustering) to supervised ones (decision trees, random forests, basic neural networks, regression trees, and Extreme Learning Machines) Graph analysis including pinpointing the connections among the various entities and how they can be mined for useful insights. Each chapter concludes with a series of questions and exercises to reinforce what you learned. The last chapter of the book will guide you in creating a data science application from scratch using Julia.

"This book is a great way to both start learning data science through the promising Julia language and to become an efficient data scientist."- Professor Charles Bouveyron, INRIA Chair in Data Science, Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France Julia, an open-source programming language, was created to be as easy to use as languages such as R and Python while also as fast as C and Fortran. An accessible, intuitive, and highly efficient base language with speed that exceeds R and Python, makes Julia a formidable language for data science. Using well known data science methods that will motivate the reader, Data Science with Julia will get readers up to speed on key features of the Julia language and illustrate its facilities for data science and machine learning work. Features: Covers the core components of Julia as well as packages relevant to the input, manipulation and representation of data. Discusses several important topics in data science including supervised and unsupervised learning. Reviews data visualization using the Gadfly package, which was designed to emulate the very popular ggplot2 package in R. Readers will learn how to make many common plots and how to visualize model results. Presents how to optimize Julia code for performance. Will be an ideal source for people who already know R and want to learn how to use Julia (though no previous knowledge of R or any other programming language is required). The advantages of Julia for data science cannot be understated. Besides speed and ease of use, there are already over 1,900 packages available and Julia can interface (either directly or through packages) with libraries written in R, Python, Matlab, C, C++ or Fortran. The book is for senior undergraduates, beginning graduate students, or practicing data scientists who want to learn how to use Julia for data science. "This book is a great way to both start learning data science through the promising Julia language and to become an efficient data scientist." Professor Charles Bouveyron INRIA Chair in Data Science Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France

Despite the recent rapid growth in machine learning and predictive analytics, many of the statistical questions that are faced by researchers and practitioners still involve explaining why something is happening. Regression analysis is the best ‘swiss army knife’ we have for answering these kinds of questions. This book is a learning resource on inferential statistics and regression analysis. It teaches how to do a wide range of statistical analyses in both R and in Python, ranging from simple hypothesis testing to advanced multivariate modelling. Although it is primarily focused on examples related to the analysis of people and talent, the methods easily transfer to any discipline. The book hits a ‘sweet spot’ where there is just enough mathematical theory to support a strong understanding of the methods, but with a step-by-step guide and easily reproducible examples and code, so that the methods can be put into practice immediately. This makes the book accessible to a wide readership, from public and private sector analysts and practitioners to students and researchers. Key Features: • 16 accompanying datasets across a wide range of contexts (e.g. academic, corporate, sports, marketing) • Clear step-by-step instructions on executing the analyses. • Clear guidance on how to interpret results. • Primary instruction in R but added sections for Python coders. • Discussion exercises and data exercises for each of the main chapters. • Final chapter of practice material and datasets ideal for class homework or project work.

Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan builds readers’ knowledge of and confidence in statistical modeling. Reflecting the need for even minor programming in today’s model-based statistics, the book pushes readers to perform step-by-step calculations that are usually automated. This unique computational approach ensures that readers understand enough of the details to make reasonable choices and interpretations in their own modeling work. The text presents generalized linear multilevel models from a Bayesian perspective, relying on a simple logical interpretation of Bayesian probability and maximum entropy. It covers from the basics of regression to multilevel models. The author also discusses measurement error, missing data, and Gaussian process models for spatial and network autocorrelation. By using complete R code examples throughout, this book provides a practical foundation for performing statistical inference. Designed for both PhD students and seasoned professionals in the natural and social sciences, it prepares them for more advanced or specialized statistical modeling. Web Resource The book is accompanied by an R package (rethinking) that is available on the author’s website and GitHub. The two core functions (map and map2stan) of this package allow a variety of statistical models to be constructed from standard model formulas.

If you’re just learning how to program, Julia is an excellent JIT-compiled, dynamically typed language with a clean syntax. This hands-on guide uses Julia 1.0 to walk you through programming one step at a time, beginning with basic programming concepts before moving on to more advanced capabilities, such as creating new types and multiple dispatch. Designed from the beginning for high performance, Julia is a general-purpose language ideal for not only numerical analysis and computational science but also web programming and scripting. Through exercises in each chapter, you’ll try out programming concepts as you learn them. Think Julia is perfect for students at the high school or college level as well as self-learners and professionals who need to learn programming basics. Start with the basics, including language syntax and semantics Get a clear definition of each programming concept Learn about values, variables, statements, functions, and data structures in a logical progression Discover how to work with files and databases Understand types, methods, and multiple dispatch Use debugging techniques to fix syntax, runtime, and semantic errors Explore interface design and data structures through case studies

"Probability is one of the most interesting subjects in electrical engineering and computer science. It bridges our favorite engineering principles to the practical reality, a world that is full of uncertainty. However, because probability is such a mature subject, the undergraduate textbooks alone might fill several rows of shelves in a library. When the literature is so rich, the challenge becomes how one can pierce through to the insight while diving into the details. For example, many of you have used a normal random variable before, but have you ever wondered where the 'bell shape' comes from? Every probability class will teach you about flipping a coin, but how can 'flipping a coin' ever be useful in machine learning today? Data scientists use the Poisson random variables to model the internet traffic, but where does the gorgeous Poisson equation come from? This book is designed to fill these gaps with knowledge that is essential to all data science students." -- Preface.