About the Authors
Luca Massaron is a data scientist and a marketing research director who specializes in multivariate statistical analysis, machine learning, and customer insight, with over a decade of experience in solving real-world problems and generating value for stakeholders by applying reasoning, statistics, data mining, and algorithms. From being a pioneer of web audience analysis in Italy to achieving the rank of top ten Kaggler on kaggle.com, he has always been passionate about everything regarding data and analysis and about demonstrating the potentiality of data-driven knowledge discovery to both experts and non experts. Favoring simplicity over unnecessary sophistication, he believes that a lot can be achieved in data science by understanding and practicing the essentials of it.
John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 97 books and more than 600 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads-down programming. Some of his current books include a book on Python for beginners and a book about MATLAB. He has also written a Java e-learning kit, a book on HTML5 development with JavaScript, and another on CSS3. His technical editing skills have helped more than 63 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. John has provided technical editing services to both Data Based Advisor and Coast Compute magazines. It was during his time with Data Based Advisor that John was first exposed to MATLAB, and he has continued to follow the progress in MATLAB development ever since. During his time at Cubic Corporation, John was exposed to reliability engineering and has continued his interest in probability. Be sure to read John’s blog at http://blog.johnmuellerbooks.com/.
When John isn’t working at the computer, you can find him outside in the garden, cutting wood, or generally enjoying nature. John also likes making wine, baking cookies, and knitting. When not occupied with anything else, he makes glycerin soap and candles, which come in handy for gift baskets. You can reach John on the Internet at [email protected]. John is also setting up a website at http://www.johnmuellerbooks.com/. Feel free to take a look and make suggestions on how he can improve it.
Luca’s Dedication
I would like to dedicate this book to my parents, Renzo and Licia, who both love simple and well-explained ideas and who now, by reading the book we wrote, will understand more of my daily work in data science and how this new discipline is going to change the way we understand the world and operate in it.
John’s Dedication
This book is dedicated to the scientists, engineers, dreamers, and philosophers of the world — that unheralded group who makes such a large difference in the lives of everyone on the planet.
Luca’s Acknowledgments
My greatest thanks to my family, Yukiko and Amelia, for their support and loving patience.
I also thank all my fellow Kagglers for their help and unstoppable exchanging of ideas and opinions. My thanks in particular to Alberto Boschetti, Giuliano Janson, Bastiaan Sjardin, and Zacharias Voulgaris.
John’s Acknowledgments
Thanks to my wife, Rebecca. Even though she is gone now, her spirit is in every book I write, in every word that appears on the page. She believed in me when no one else would.
Russ Mullen deserves thanks for his technical edit of this book. He greatly added to the accuracy and depth of the material you see here. Russ worked exceptionally hard helping with the research for this book by locating hard-to-find URLs and also offering a lot of suggestions.
Matt Wagner, my agent, deserves credit for helping me get the contract in the first place and taking care of all the details that most authors don’t really consider. I always appreciate his assistance. It’s good to know that someone wants to help.
A number of people read all or part of this book to help me refine the approach, test scripts, and generally provide input that all readers wish they could have. These unpaid volunteers helped in ways too numerous to mention here. I especially appreciate the efforts of Eva Beattie, Glenn A. Russell, Osvaldo Téllez Almirall, and Thomas Zinckgraf, who provided general input, read the entire book, and selflessly devoted themselves to this project.
Finally, I would like to thank Kyle Looper, Susan Christophersen, and the rest of the editorial and production staff.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
Acquisitions Editor: Katie Mohr
Project and Copy Editor: Susan Christophersen
Technical Editor: Russ Mullen
Editorial Assistant: Claire Brock
Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case
Project Coordinator: Vinitha Vikraman
Cover Image: © iStock.com/Magnilion; © iStock.com/nadla