Principles and Practice of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information

Principles and Practice of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information, Second Edition updates and expands on the first edition, bringing a set of techniques and algorithms that are tailored to Big Data projects. The book stresses the point that most data analyses conducted on large, complex data sets can be achieved without the use of specialized suites of software (e.g., Hadoop), and without expensive hardware (e.g., supercomputers). The core of every algorithm described in the book can be implemented in a few lines of code using just about any popular programming language (Python snippets are provided).

Through the use of new multiple examples, this edition demonstrates that if we understand our data, and if we know how to ask the right questions, we can learn a great deal from large and complex data collections. The book will assist students and professionals from all scientific backgrounds who are interested in stepping outside the traditional boundaries of their chosen academic disciplines.

• Presents new methodologies that are widely applicable to just about any project involving large and complex datasets
• Offers readers informative new case studies across a range scientific and engineering disciplines
• Provides insights into semantics, identification, de-identification, vulnerabilities and regulatory/legal issues
• Utilizes a combination of pseudocode and very short snippets of Python code to show readers how they may develop their own projects without downloading or learning new software

Jules Berman holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT (in Mathematics and in Earth and Planetary Sciences), a PhD from Temple University, and an MD from the University of Miami. He was a graduate researcher at the Fels Cancer Research Institute (Temple University) and at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York. He completed his postdoctoral studies at the US National Institutes of Health, and his residency at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Berman served as Chief of anatomic pathology, surgical pathology, and cytopathology at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, where he held joint appointments at the University of Maryland Medical Center and at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. In 1998, he transferred to the US National Institutes of Health as a Medical Officer and as the Program Director for Pathology Informatics in the Cancer Diagnosis Program at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Berman is a past President of the Association for Pathology Informatics and is the 2011 recipient of the Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a listed author of more than 200 scientific publications and has written more than a dozen books in his three areas of expertise: informatics, computer programming, and pathology. Dr. Berman is currently a freelance writer.