Ivan Idris - Python Data Analysis

Ivan Idris has an MSc degree in Experimental Physics. His graduation thesis had a strong emphasis on Applied Computer Science. After graduating, he worked for several companies as Java developer, data warehouse developer, and QA analyst. His main professional interests are Business Intelligence, Big Data, and Cloud Computing.

Ivan Idris enjoys writing clean, testable code and interesting technical articles. He is the author of NumPy Beginner's Guide - Second Edition , NumPy Cookbook , and Learning NumPy Array , all by Packt Publishing. You can find more information and a blog with a few NumPy examples at ivanidris.net.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the reviewers and the team at Packt Publishing for making this book possible. Also, my thanks go to my teachers, professors, and colleagues, who taught me about science and programming. Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge my parents, family, and friends for their support.

Amanda Casari is currently a data scientist and engineer in the Seattle area. Amanda received her MSEE degree and Certificate of Study in Complex Systems from the University of Vermont and a BS degree in Systems Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. She has more than 10 years of professional experience, ranging from naval officer, analyst, conservation trip leader to integration engineer. Her research interests focus on discovering attributes of natural systems to update and optimize man-made complex networks. Amanda is passionate about making Mathematics and Science approachable to everyone.

I would like to thank my family for supporting our journey and inspiring me during this effort, N. Manukyan for all of her data enthusiasm, C. Stone for creative breakfasts, the Carnation Climbing Club, and P. Nathan for kindly encouraging my myriad interests.

Thomas A. Dyar (Tom) is a senior data scientist in the Genomic Sciences group at BD Technologies (www.bd.com), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where he develops algorithms to process genomic data in a variety of contextsfrom targeted panels to whole genomesfor infectious disease and oncology diagnostics applications. His areas of expertise are scientific programming in Java, Python, and R; machine learning, including neural networks and kernel methods; and data analysis and visualization. His primary interests are in conceptualizing and developing large-scale data-driven solutions using Cloud resources.

Tom started his career in software, developing neural networks and expert systems tools for process control in the aerospace and petrochemical industries. He has also worked on distributed virtual environments for stroke rehabilitation at MIT and automated image processing for high-throughput cell biology experiments at BD.

Tom earned his BA degree in Pure & Applied Mathematics from Boston University and is a member of the ACM and IEEE associations.

Dr. Hari Shanker Gupta is a senior quantitative research analyst working in the area of algorithmic trading system development. Prior to this, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. He obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computation from IISc. He completed his MSc in Mathematics from Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India. During his MSc, he was awarded four gold medals for outstanding performance at BHU.

Hari has published five research papers in reputed journals in the field of Mathematics and Scientific Computation. He has experience working in the areas of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computation. His experience includes working in numerical methods, partial differential equations, mathematical finance, stochastic calculus, data analysis, finite difference, and finite element methods. He is very comfortable with the mathematics software, MATLAB; the statistics programming language, R; Python; and the programming language, C.

He has reviewed the book Introduction to R for Quantitative Finance , Packt Publishing .

Puneet Narula has over 8 years of experience in the Banking and Finance industry, but his aptitude and passion for the technology sector has brought him back into the world of data and analytics. Leaving behind a stable career in banking was a very tough decision, but following his dreams was even more important to him. He completed his MSc degree in Data Analytics from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2013 to enter the world of analytics and data science. Currently, Puneet is working with Web Reservations International as a PPC data analyst.

At Web Reservations International (WRI), Puneet works with massive clickstream data from both direct and affiliate sources. The technologies used for the analysis is a combination of RapidMiner, R, and Python.

I want to thank Silviu Preoteasa for all his support and motivation at all times.

Alan J. Salmoni enjoys making sense of data and is the author of Salstat (http://www.salstat.com). He has been using Python for data analysis since 2001 and has taught statistics to undergraduates and postgraduates. When not with his family, he spends time generating large statistical models of text for natural language processing.

Alan owns a company, Thought Into Design, which specializes in data analysis and user experience.