KDnuggets™ News 13:n27, Nov 13

Features

• Yang-Mills: A million dollar connection between Twitter and quantum physics? ( comments) - Nov 3, 2013.
  Is there a link between Social network connections, as revealed on Twitter, and Quantum Physics, specifically Quantum Yang-Mills theory, one of Millenium $1 Million math problems?
• John Tukey "Badmandments" ( comments) - Nov 3, 2013.
  "Badmandments" from great statistician John Tukey: NEVER plan any analysis before seeing data; DONT consult with a statistician until after collecting data; LARGE enough samples always tell the truth.
• Data Marketing 2013, Toronto, Dec 9-10, Free VIP pass - Nov 12, 2013.
  KDnuggets has 2 free VIP passes to DATA MARKETING 2013 (Toronto, Dec 9-10), which presents the latest in technology and data for marketers. Contact KDnuggets by Nov 15 if interested.
• PAW: Predictive Analytics World, San Francisco, March 2014, Agenda released - Nov 12, 2013.
  San Francisco will host the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors, and business thought leaders at Predictive Analytics World. The detailed agenda has just been released and this event is not to be missed.
• Booz Allen "Field Guide to Data Science" - free download - Nov 10, 2013.
  The guide includes an introductory section, the practitioners guide to Data Science, a first hand account of life as a Data Scientist, tips and tricks, and an overview of successful data science solutions. Free Download.
• Videos from 2013 Strata Big Data Conference + Hadoop World - Nov 2, 2013.
  Strata Conference + Hadoop World brings together the people, tools, and technologies that make data work. Watch the videos from 2013 conference, including Ken Rudin (Facebook) on Big Impact from Big Data", Claudia Perlich on separating ad bots from humans, and Doug Cutting, co-founder of Hadoop, on Hadoop future.
• Top news for Nov 3-9: 7 Steps for Learning Data Mining; Twitter and Quantum Physics? John Tukey "Badmandments" - Nov 10, 2013.
  7 Steps for Learning Data Mining and Data Science; John Tukey "Badmandments"; Yang-Mills: A million dollar connection between Twitter and quantum physics?
  Top jobs: Advanced Data Mining Engineer StubHub at eBay; Multiple PhD vacancies on Process Mining at TU/E
• Top news for Oct 27 - Nov 2: Free Book: Advanced Text Mining; Strata 2013 Videos; 7 Steps for Learning Data Mining - Nov 3, 2013.
  Free Book: Theory and Applications for Advanced Text Mining; Strata 2013 Videos; 7 Steps for Learning Data Mining; Top jobs: Adjunct Faculty, develop, teach on/off-line courses on Data Mining, Data Science at NYU; Text Mining Sentiment Analyst at SCM
• Top news in October: 7 Steps for Learning Data Mining; 3 Free Big Data books; To Hadoop or Not? - Nov 1, 2013.
  7 Steps for Learning Data Mining and Data Science; 3 Free Big Data books from O'Reilly on Amazon; To Hadoop or Not to Hadoop?
  Top jobs: Senior Data Scientist - Discovery and Personalization at Netflix, Los Gatos, CA; Applied Data Scientist at Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon;
• Additions to KDnuggets Directory in October - Nov 1, 2013.
  Asia Analytics, Corral Big Data repository, Chordalysis, IBM IMARS, SQLPASS 2014, Quantcell, and more Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining, and Data Science companies, datasets, education, faq, meetings, and software.

Software

• Chordalysis: a new method to discover the structure of data - Nov 12, 2013.
  This new method helps you answer "why" - understand the reasons for prediction. It uses chordal graphs to scale the classical method of log-linear analysis to much larger datasets.
• Chordalysis: Free software for Log-linear analysis of Big Data - Oct 30, 2013.
  Chordalysis is a log-linear analysis method for big data, which exploits recent discoveries in graph theory by representing complex models as compositions of triangular structures (aka chordal graphs).
• Plot.ly, collaborative data analysis and graphing - Nov 6, 2013.
  Plotly allows you bring your data from anywhere, clean it up fast, analyze or simulate, and graph it interactively, and share and collaborate.
• Datameer $49 Charity Edition: Leveraging Hadoop to Help Save Elephants - Nov 1, 2013.
  Hadoop was named after a toy elephant but it can help save real African Elephants. To help pay for the care, feeding, and rehabilitation of orphaned elephants, Datameer will donate 100% of proceeds from sales in November of its new $49 Charity Edition to Pro Wildlife.

Webcasts

• Upcoming Nov-Dec Webcasts on Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining, Data Science - Nov 12, 2013.
  Webcast highlights include Analytically Speaking with John Pullinger, Data Mining: Failure to Launch, Fighting Fraud with Analytics, SPSS Modeler training, and Predicting Life Changes from Financial Activity.
• Webinar: Predictive Analytics - Customer Churn Modeling, Dec 3 - Nov 9, 2013.
  This webinar will show how to build a churn model, which allows you to identify customers with high churn risk, and act to proactively to keep them.
• Webcast: Analytically Speaking International Year of Statistics Panel, Dec 11 - Nov 5, 2013.
  The leading experts on statistics and data science will tell their stories about the value of statistics to science, industry, health, business and beyond. Register for this insightful Dec 11 webcast.

Courses, Events

• Stanford Big Data Mining, Finance, Statistics Courses Online - Nov 5, 2013.
  "Big data" needs YOU! Stanford University certificates in data mining and statistics give you the knowledge, and credential, to prove you are the best for the job. Enroll for winter quarter courses thru Dec 9.
• NYU Stern MS in Business Analytics - Nov 11, 2013.
  NYU Stern MS in Business Analytics is for experienced professionals, and teaches in 5 intensive 1-2 week sessions how to understand the role of evidence-based data in decision-making and to leverage data as a valuable and predictive strategic asset.
• Learn Data Science in 12 Intense Weeks at Zipfian Academy - Nov 9, 2013.
  Zipfian Academy is a school teaching data science through an immersive 12-week program in San Francisco. Learn with hands-on projects and data scientist mentors, and connect with top Bay area companies. Applications accepted now for Winter cohort (Jan 26 - Apr 11, 2014).
• Salford Systems Data Mining Training, online or on-site, Dec 11-13 - Nov 3, 2013.
  Salford Systems will be offering an online option for their annual data mining training course, covering exactly the same material as for those attending in-person. Dec 11-13, 2013.
• Online MS in Data Analytics CUNY SPS - Nov 1, 2013.
  The CUNY School of Professional Studies (CUNY SPS) offers a fully online, low-cost MS in Data Analytics program that prepares graduates to manage, identify patterns and draw insights from large amounts of data.

Meetings

• IEEE ICDM 2013 International Conference on Data Mining, Dallas, Dec 7-10 - Nov 9, 2013.
  IEEE ICDM ia a leading research conference in data mining, with excellent invited talks, technical papers, workshops and tutorials. Travel awards available for graduate students.
• Big Data Or Bad Data, an initiative by the Senseable City Lab at the MIT, Nov 15 - Nov 4, 2013.
  BIG DATA OR BAD DATA, an initiative by the Senseable City Lab at the MIT, will kick off with a panel between Noam Chomsky, Barton Gellman, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and publisher of Edward Snowden leaks in the Washington Post, and possibly a special speaker connected via remote link.
• Nov-Jan Meetings in Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining, and Data Science - Nov 4, 2013.
  26 upcoming meetings in Nov 2013 - Jan 2014, including Boston Data Festival, Engaging Data 2013 at MIT, global Big Data Festival, Text Analytics Summit West, Big Data and Analytics Innovation Summits in Beijing, ICDM 13, and EGC 2014.

Jobs

• Data Scientist/Statistician at WeddingWire, Chevy Chase, MD - Nov 12, 2013.
  We are growing our Data Science team and looking for curious and nimble "math magicians" to predict the future and help us draw the map to get there.
• Vice-President, Marketing Analytics & Business Intelligence at Progressive Business Publications (PBP), Malvern, PA - Nov 12, 2013.
  Collaborate with the executive leadership and be responsible for building, leading and growing an advanced, competitive analytics and business intelligence function.
• Data Analysis Consultant at Megaputer, Bloomington, IN - Nov 12, 2013.
  Create data analysis and reporting solutions for Megaputer customers with the help of PolyAnalyst(tm) platform: experimental, proof-of-concept, implementation, and production projects. Develop successful long-term relationships with customers.
• Data Scientist at Edmunds, Santa Monica, CA - Nov 11, 2013.
  Work on a wide range of projects, using everything from recommendation engines to user segmentation and clustering, and make an impact on how manufacturers, auto dealers, and consumers interact.
• Senior NLP Engineer at Kanjoya, San Francisco, CA - Nov 9, 2013.
  We develop technologies that enable real understanding of human expression. Our platform extracts detailed emotion-based insights from text content.
• Sr Data Miner/Predictive Modeler at BIS Consulting Inc. (long-term contract at high-tech company in Silicon Valley), San Jose, CA - Nov 5, 2013.
  Support our high-tech client in their Marketing Organization, develop analytical models across the enterprise, using SAS, to discover trends to help management make more informed business decisions.
• Engineer, Software Systems at SIG, Near Philadelphia, PA - Nov 4, 2013.
  Help us develop real-time systems to help us turn web information into actionable trading ideas, and architect the next generation of our signals infrastructure.

Academic/Research positions

• Adjunct Faculty, develop and teach courses Data Mining, Data Science, Business Analytics at NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, New York, NY or telecommute - Oct 31, 2013.
  Seeking industry practitioners to develop and teach courses in the areas of Data Mining, Data Science or Business Analytics. We are interested in faculty with advanced degrees and experience teaching courses on-site, on-line or in a blended format.
• Multiple PhD vacancies on Process Mining at TU/E, Technical University Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Netherlands - Nov 9, 2013.
  Several PhD vacancies for people with a strong background in data mining, machine learning, process analytics, predictive analytics, or Big Data.
• Postdoc in machine learning/data mining at Bristol, Bristol, UK - Nov 7, 2013.
  Looking for highly experienced postdocs to work on the SPHERE (a Sensor Platform for Healthcare in a Residential Environment) project - great opportunity to make your mark in machine learning and data mining for health applications. Apply by Dec 2.
• 4 Postdoc Positions In CS and Population Genetics at Project Sage, UK, Germany, Austria - Nov 5, 2013.
  Four outstanding postdoctoral candidates are required to support the 2M euro EU-funded project "Speed of Adaptation in Population Genetics and Evolutionary Computation" (SAGE).

Competitions

• Yandex Personalized Web Search Challenge - Nov 12, 2013.
  The challenge ask participants to re-rank URLs of each SERP returned by the search engine according to the personal preferences of the users - personalize search using the long-term (user history based) and short-term (session-based) user context.
• NineSigma RFP: Numerical Data Retrieval Algorithm Using Natural Language - Nov 7, 2013.
  NineSigma is seeking a software algorithm that uses a natural language query to retrieve matching results from large-scale time-series data sets created from measurements taken at industrial plant facilities. Submit by Nov 25.

Publications

• New dataset: London Pulse: Medical Officer of Health Reports, 1848-1972 - Nov 7, 2013.
  They contain personal accounts by the Medical Officers and statistical data in the form of graphs, tables and charts, offering a rich source of material for public health research.
• 4 Steps to Successfully Evaluating Business Analytics Software - Nov 7, 2013.
  Find out 4 Steps to successfully evaluating business analytics software: the differences between BI/Analytics stacks, how to choose technology that will scale to your long-term requirements, and more.
• Big Data Top-Read Articles - Nov 6, 2013.
  The most read articles include why Why Big Data Won't Cure Us, Data Science and its Relationship to Big Data, The Quantified Self, and Apache Drill: Interactive Ad-Hoc Analysis at Scale.
• LIONbook Chapter 12: Top-down clustering: K-means - Oct 31, 2013.
  The LIONbook on machine learning and optimization, written by co-founders of LionSolver software, is provided free for personal and non-profit usage. Chapter 11 looks at Top-down clustering: K-means.

Top Tweets

• Top KDnuggets tweets, Nov 8-10: Field Guide to Data Science, free download; Hilary Mason plans her own startup - Nov 11, 2013.
  Booz Allen Field Guide to Data Science (free download); Star Data Scientist Hilary Mason plans on starting her own company; Learn Data Science in 12 Intense Weeks at Zipfian Academy
• Top KDnuggets tweets, Nov 6-7: Google Python Lessons are awesome and free; Data Analysis course at Coursera - Nov 8, 2013.
  Google Python Lessons are awesome and available online, for free! ; Data Analysis course now open at Coursera; The worst part of working at Google, for many people: overqualified; Bristol: Senior postdocs in machine learning/data mining, health applications
• Top KDnuggets tweets, Nov 4-5: Venture capital in an age of algorithms; Stanford Big Data Mining Courses Online - Nov 6, 2013.
  Venture capital in an age of algorithms: using data science to fund startups; Stanford Big Data Mining, Finance, Statistics Courses Online; How data mining helped GM limit a recall to just 4 (four) cars; 10 strangest data findings: unusual color cars are more reliable
• Top KDnuggets tweets, Nov 1-3: Videos from 2013 Strata + Hadoop World; Top 10 data mining algorithms, updated - Nov 5, 2013.
  Videos from 2013 Strata Big Data Conference + Hadoop World ; My answer to What are the top 10 data mining or machine learning algorithms? ; Star Data Scientist Hilary Mason on her favorite iPhone data app; Really Big, #BigData Job growth infographic
• Top KDnuggets tweets, Oct 30-31: How Mac Mini beat a Hadoop cluster; 6 startups want to disrupt #BigData - Nov 1, 2013.
  How GraphChi algorithm on a Mac Mini outperformed a 1,636 Node Hadoop Cluster; These 6 startups want to disrupt #BigData world; The Mathematical Shape of Big Science Data; 10 #BigData case studies
• Top KDnuggets tweets, Oct 28-29: The Mathematical Shape of Big Science Data; Great Guide to NoSQL - Oct 30, 2013.
  The Mathematical Shape of Big Science Data - new calculus of network analysis; Great read: HP Guide to NoSQL explains CAP theorem, MapReduce, new RDBMS systems; 10 rules for reproducible computation research (and data science); Strata #BigData Conference + Hadoop World 2013 in NYC - watch keynotes live

News Briefs

• KPMG Capital Investment Fund for Big Data and Analytics - Nov 12, 2013.
  KPMG Capital will support technology partnerships, strategic alliances and the recruitment of top talent to create new Data and Analytics solutions. Currently, 69% of business leaders see data and analytics as strategically important, but only 4% say their company is using them effectively.
• October Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining companies and startups activity - Nov 7, 2013.
  The October 2013 acquisitions, startups, and company activity in Analytics, Big Data, Data Mining, and Data Science: Monsanto buys Climate Corp for $1.1B, MongoDB raises $150M, Facebook buys Onavo, Pivotal buys Xtreme Labs.
• RapidMiner gets $5M funding, rebrands, plans expansion - Nov 4, 2013.
  RapidMiner, formerly Rapid-I, raised $5M from VCs that backed MySQL; Rebrands as RapidMiner with a new web site, renaming of predictive analytics product line; moves headquarters to Boston.

CFP - Calls for Papers

• FLAIRS_HealthInfo:: AI in Healthcare Informatics track at FLAIRS 2014, due Nov 18
• BDSA: Big Data for Social Analysis, due Nov 22
• ICWSM-14: The 8th Int. AAAI Conf. on Weblogs and Social Media, due Jan 15
• WebSci14: ACM Web Science Conf., due Feb 23
• DATA 2014: 3rd Int. Conf. on Data Management Technologies and Applications, due Mar 18

Quote

Data Science analytics are a lot like broccoli - fractal in nature in both time and construction. From Booz Allen "Field Guide to Data Science"