Data Science. A Course

In order to understand the world, it is necessary to collect and analyze data about it. The convergence of the latest technological trends provides new opportunities for applying data analysis to more complex tasks than ever before. The capacity of computer storage is increasing exponentially; data storage has become so cheap that computer systems can almost forget nothing. Sensor devices are increasingly monitoring everything that can be observed: streams of video, actions on social media, and the location of everything that moves. The networked computing environment allows for the use of vast amounts of machines to manipulate this data. Every time you perform a search on Google, hundreds of computers are engaged, carefully examining all your previous actions, just to determine which advertisement is best to show you. The result of all this has been the birth of data science—a new field dedicated to maximizing the value of vast collections of information. As a discipline, data science lies somewhere at the intersection of statistics, computer science, and machine learning, but stands apart as a distinct entity. This book serves as an introduction to data science, focusing on the skills and principles necessary for building systems designed for analyzing and interpreting data.