Tag: data

2011 Analytics Recap

Events in the field of data that impacted us in 2011

1) Oracle unveiled plans for R Enterprise. This is one of the strongest statements of its focus on in-database analytics. Oracle also unveiled plans for a Public Cloud

2) SAS Institute released version 9.3 , a major analytics software in industry use.

3) IBM acquired many companies in analytics and high tech. Again.However the expected benefits from Cognos-SPSS integration are yet to show a spectacular change in market share.

2011 Selected acquisitions

Emptoris Inc. December 2011

Cúram Software Ltd. December 2011

DemandTec December 2011

Platform Computing October 2011

 Q1 Labs October 2011

Algorithmics September 2011

 i2 August 2011

Tririga March 2011

 

4) SAP promised a lot with SAP HANA- again no major oohs and ahs in terms of market share fluctuations within analytics.

http://www.sap.com/india/news-reader/index.epx?articleID=17619

5) Amazon continued to lower prices of cloud computing and offer more options.

http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2011/12/21/amazon-elastic-mapreduce-announces-support-for-cc2-8xlarge-instances/

6) Google continues to dilly -dally with its analytics and cloud based APIs. I do not expect all the APIs in the Google APIs suit to survive and be viable in the enterprise software space.  This includes Google Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, Prediction API at https://code.google.com/apis/console/b/0/ Some of the location based , translation based APIs may have interesting spin offs that may be very very commercially lucrative.

7) Microsoft -did- hmm- I forgot. Except for its investment in Revolution Analytics round 1 many seasons ago- very little excitement has come from MS plans in data mining- The plugins for cloud based data mining from Excel remain promising yet , while Azure remains a stealth mode starter.

8) Revolution Analytics promised us a GUI and didnt deliver (till yet 🙂 ) . But it did reveal a much better Enterprise software Revolution R 5.0 is one of the strongest enterprise software in the R /Stat Computing space and R’s memory handling problem is now an issue of perception than actual stuff thanks to newer advances in how it is used.

9) More conferences, more books and more news on analytics startups in 2011. Big Data analytics remained a strong buzzword. Expect more from this space including creative uses of Hadoop based infrastructure.

10) Data privacy issues continue to hamper and impede effective analytics usage. So does rational and balanced regulation in some of the most advanced economies. We expect more regulation and better guidelines in 2012.

Does the Internet need its own version of credit bureaus

Data Miners love data. The more data they have the better model they can build. Consumers do not love data so much and find sharing data generally a cumbersome task. They need to be incentivize for filling out survey forms , and for signing to loyalty programs. Lawyers, and privacy advocates love to use examples of improper data collection and usage as the harbinger of an ominous scenario. George Orwell’s 1984 never “mentioned” anything about Big Brother trying to sell you one more loan, credit card or product.

Data generated by customers is now growing without their needing to fill out forms and surveys. This data is about their preferences , tastes and choices and is growing in size and depth because it is generated from social media channels on the Internet.It is this data that can be and is captured by social media analytics.

Mobile data is also growing, including usage of location based applications and usage of Internet from the mobile phone is leading to further increases in data about consumers.Increasingly , location based applications help to provide a much more relevant context to the data generated. Just mobile data is expected to grow to 15 exabytes by 2015.

People want to have more and more conversations online publicly , share pictures , activity and interact with a large number of people whom  they have never met. But resent that information being used or abused without their knowledge.

Also the Internet is increasingly being consolidated into a few players like Microsoft, Amazon, Google  and Facebook, who are unable to agree on agreements to share that data between themselves. Interestingly you can use Yahoo as a data middleman between Google and Facebook.

At the same time, more and more purchases are being done online by customers and Internet advertising has grown much above the rate of growth of other mediums of communication.
Internet retail sales have the advantage that better demand predictability can lead to lower inventories as retailers need not stock up displays to look good. An Amazon warehouse need not keep material to simply stock up it shelves like a K-Mart does.

Our Hypothesis – An Analogy with how Financial Data Marketing is managed offline

  1. Financial information regarding spending and saving is much more sensitive yet the presence of credit bureaus alleviates these concerns.
  2. Credit bureaus collect information from all sources, aggregate and anonymize the individual components accordingly.They use SSN as a unique identifier.
  3. The Internet has a unique number too , called the Internet Protocol Address (I.P) 
  4. Should there be a unique identifier like Internet Security Number for the Internet to ensure adequate balance between the need for privacy as well as the need for appropriate targeting? 

After all, no one complains about privacy intrusions if their credit bureau data is aggregated , rolled up, and anonymized and turned into a propensity model for sending them direct mailers.

Advertising using Social Media and Internet

https://www.facebook.com/about/ads/#stories

1. A business creates an ad
Let’s say a gym opens in your neighborhood. The owner creates an ad to get people to come in for a free workout.
2. Facebook gets paid to deliver the ad
The owner sends the ad to Facebook and describes who should see it: people who live nearby and like running.
The right people see the ad
3. Facebook only shows you the ad if you live in town and like to run. That’s how advertisers reach you without knowing who you are.

Adding in credit bureau data and legislative regulation for anonymizing  and handling privacy data can expand the internet selling market, which is much more efficient from a supply chain perspective than the offline display and shop models.

Privacy Regulations on Marketing using Internet data
Should laws on opt out and do not mail, do not call, lists be extended to do not show ads , do not collect information on social media. In the offline world, you can choose to be part of direct marketing or opt out of direct marketing by enrolling yourself in various do not solicit lists. On the internet the only option from advertisements is to use the Adblock plugin if you are Google Chrome or Firefox browser user. Even Facebook gives you many more ads than you need to see.

One reason for so many ads on the Internet is lack of central anonymize data repositories for giving high quality data to these marketing companies.Software that can be used for social media analytics is already available off the shelf.

The growth of the Internet has helped carved out a big industry for Internet web analytics so it is a matter of time before social media analytics becomes a multi billion dollar business as well. What new developments would be unleashed in this brave new world is just a matter of time, and of course of the social media data!

Ads Alliance on Internet

Just saw

the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising.

Multi-Site Data Collection Principles Broaden Self Regulation Beyond Online Behavioral Advertising
WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 7, 2011

The new Principles consist of the following specific requirements:

  1. Transparency and consumer control for purposes other than OBA – The Multi-Site Data Principles call for organizations that collect Multi-Site Data for purposes other than OBA to provide transparency and control regarding Internet surfing across unrelated Websites.
  2. Collection / use of data for eligibility determination – The Multi-Site Data Principles prohibit the collection, use or transfer of Internet surfing data across Websites for determination of a consumer’s eligibility for employment, credit standing, healthcare treatment and insurance.
  3. Collection / use of children’s data – The Multi-Site Data Principles state that organizations must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
  4. Meaningful accountability – The Multi-Site Data Principles are subject to enforcement through strong accountability mechanisms.

http://www.aboutads.info/principles

The DAA Self-Regulatory Principles

 

The cross-industry Self-Regulatory Principles for Multi-Site Data augment the Self-Regulatory   Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising  (OBA)  by covering the prospective  collection of Web site   data beyond that collected for OBA purposes.  The existing OBA  Principles and definitions  remain in   full force and effect and are not limited by the new  principles.

The cross-industry Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising was developed by   leading industry associations to apply  consumer-friendly standards to online  behavioral advertising  across the Internet. Online behavioral advertising increasingly supports the convenient access to  content, services, and applications over the Internet that consumers have come to expect at no cost   to them.

The Education Principle calls for organizations to participate in efforts to educate individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising and the Principles.

The Transparency Principle calls for clearer and easily accessible disclosures to consumers about data collection and use practices associated with online behavioral advertising. It will result in new, enhanced notice on the page where data is collected through links embedded in or around advertisements, or on the Web page itself.

The Consumer Control Principle provides consumers with an expanded ability to choose whether data is collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes. This choice will be available through a link from the notice provided on the Web page where data is collected.

The Consumer Control Principle requires “service providers”, a term that includes Internet access service providers and providers of desktop applications software such as Web browser “tool bars” to obtain the consent of users before engaging in online behavioral advertising, and take steps to de-identify the data used for such purposes.

The Data Security Principle calls for organizations to provide appropriate security for, and limited retention of data, collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes.

The Material Changes Principle calls for obtaining consumer consent before a Material Change is made to an entity’s Online Behavioral Advertising data collection and use policies unless that change will result in less collection or use of data.

The Sensitive Data Principle recognizes that data collected from children and used for online behavioral advertising merits heightened protection, and requires parental consent for behavioral advertising to consumers known to be under 13 on child-directed Web sites. This Principle also provides heightened protections to certain health and financial data when attributable to a specific individual.

The Accountability Principle calls for development of programs to further advance these Principles, including programs to monitor and report instances of uncorrected non-compliance with these Principles to appropriate government agencies. The CBBB and DMA have been asked and agreed to work cooperatively to establish accountability mechanisms under the Principles.

 

Ajay- So why the self regulations?

Answer- Shoddy Maths in behaviorally targeted ads is leading to a very high glut in targeted ads, more than can be reasonably expected to click based on consumer spending. On the internet- unlike on television- cost is less of a barrrier to OVER ADVERTISING.

 

JMP and R – #rstats

An amazing example of R being used sucessfully in combination (and not is isolation) with other enterprise software is the add-ins functionality of JMP and it’s R integration.

See the following JMP add-ins which use R

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110454&jmpflag=Y

JMP Add-in: Multidimensional Scaling using R

This add-in creates a new menu command under the Add-Ins Menu in the submenu R Add-ins. The script will launch a custom dialog (or prompt for a JMP data table is one is not already open) where you can cast columns into roles for performing MDS on the data table. The analysis results in a data table of MDS dimensions and associated output graphics. MDS is a dimension reduction method that produces coordinates in Euclidean space (usually 2D, 3D) that best represent the structure of a full distance/dissimilarity matrix. MDS requires that input be a symmetric dissimilarity matrix. Input to this application can be data that is already in the form of a symmetric dissimilarity matrix or the dissimilarity matrix can be computed based on the input data (where dissimilarity measures are calculated between rows of the input data table in R).

Submitted by: Kelci Miclaus SAS employee Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins Analysis: Exploratory Data Analysis

Chernoff Faces Add-in

One way to plot multivariate data is to use Chernoff faces. For each observation in your data table, a face is drawn such that each variable in your data set is represented by a feature in the face. This add-in uses JMP’s R integration functionality to create Chernoff faces. An R install and the TeachingDemos R package are required to use this add-in.

Submitted by: Clay Barker SAS employee Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins Analysis: Data Visualization

Support Vector Machine for Classification

By simply opening a data table, specifying X, Y variables, selecting a kernel function, and specifying its parameters on the user-friendly dialog, you can build a classification model using Support Vector Machine. Please note that R package ‘e1071’ should be installed before running this dialog. The package can be found from http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/e1071/index.html.

Submitted by: Jong-Seok Lee SAS employee Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins Analysis: Exploratory Data Analysis/Mining

Penalized Regression Add-in

This add-in uses JMP’s R integration functionality to provide access to several penalized regression methods. Methods included are the LASSO (least absolutee shrinkage and selection operator, LARS (least angle regression), Forward Stagewise, and the Elastic Net. An R install and the “lars” and “elasticnet” R packages are required to use this add-in.

Submitted by: Clay Barker SAS employee Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins Analysis: Regression

MP Addin: Univariate Nonparametric Bootstrapping

This script performs simple univariate, nonparametric bootstrap sampling by using the JMP to R Project integration. A JMP Dialog is built by the script where the variable you wish to perform bootstrapping over can be specified. A statistic to compute for each bootstrap sample is chosen and the data are sent to R using new JSL functionality available in JMP 9. The boot package in R is used to call the boot() function and the boot.ci() function to calculate the sample statistic for each bootstrap sample and the basic bootstrap confidence interval. The results are brought back to JMP and displayed using the JMP Distribution platform.

Submitted by: Kelci Miclaus SAS employee Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins Analysis: Basic Statistics

Revolution Webinar Series #Rstats

Revolution Analytics Webinar-

 

Featured Webinar
David Champagne REGISTER NOW
Presenter David Champagne
CTO, Revolution Analytics
Date Tuesday, December 20th
Time 11:00AM – 11:30AM Pacific 
Click here for the webinar time in your local time zone

Big Data Starts with R

Traditional IT infrastructure is simply unable to meet

the demands of the new “Big Data Analytics” landscape.   Many enterprises are turning to the “R” statistical programming language and Hadoop (both open source projects) as a potential solution. This webinar will introduce the statistical capabilities of R within the Hadoop ecosystem.  We’ll cover:

  • An introduction to new packages developed by Revolution Analytics to facilitate interaction with the data stores HDFS and HBase so that they can be leveraged from the R environment
  • An overview of how to write Map Reduce jobs in R using Hadoop
  • Special considerations that need to be made when working with R and Hadoop.

We’ll also provide additional resources that are available to people interested in integrating R and Hadoop.

 

Upcoming Webinars
Wed, Dec 14th
11:00AM – 11:30AM PT		 Revolution R Enterprise – 100% R and MoreR users already know why the R language is the lingua franca of statisticians today: because it’s the most powerful statistical language in the world. Revolution Analytics builds on the power of open source R, and adds performance, productivity and integration features to create Revolution R Enterprise. In this webinar, author and blogger David Smith will introduce the additional capabilities of Revolution R Enterprise.
 Archived Webinars-
Revolution Webinar: New Features in Revolution R Enterprise 5.0 (including RevoScaleR) to Support Scalable Data AnalysisRevolution R Enterprise 5.0 is Revolution Analytics’ scalable analytics platform.  At its core is Revolution Analytics’ enhanced Distribution of R, the world’s most widely-used project for statistical computing.  In this webinar, Dr. Ranney will discuss new features and show examples of the new functionality, which extend the platform’s usability, integration and scalability

 

Graphs in Statistical Analysis

One of the seminal papers establishing the importance of data visualization (as it is now called) was the 1973 paper by F J Anscombe in http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/StatPrimer/anscombe1973.pdf

It has probably the most elegant introduction to an advanced statistical analysis paper that I have ever seen-

1. Usefulness of graphs

Most textbooks on statistical methods, and most statistical computer programs, pay too little attention to graphs. Few of us escape being indoctrinated with these notions:

(1) numerical calculations are exact, but graphs are rough;

(2) for any particular kind of statistical data there is just one set of calculations constituting a correct statistical analysis;

(3) performing intricate calculations is virtuous, whereas actually looking at the data is cheating.

A computer should make both calculations and graphs. Both sorts of output should be studied; each will contribute to understanding.

Of course the dataset makes it very very interesting for people who dont like graphical analysis too much.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet

 The x values are the same for the first three datasets.

Anscombe’s Quartet
I II III IV
x y x y x y x y
10.0 8.04 10.0 9.14 10.0 7.46 8.0 6.58
8.0 6.95 8.0 8.14 8.0 6.77 8.0 5.76
13.0 7.58 13.0 8.74 13.0 12.74 8.0 7.71
9.0 8.81 9.0 8.77 9.0 7.11 8.0 8.84
11.0 8.33 11.0 9.26 11.0 7.81 8.0 8.47
14.0 9.96 14.0 8.10 14.0 8.84 8.0 7.04
6.0 7.24 6.0 6.13 6.0 6.08 8.0 5.25
4.0 4.26 4.0 3.10 4.0 5.39 19.0 12.50
12.0 10.84 12.0 9.13 12.0 8.15 8.0 5.56
7.0 4.82 7.0 7.26 7.0 6.42 8.0 7.91
5.0 5.68 5.0 4.74 5.0 5.73 8.0 6.89

For all four datasets:

Property Value
Mean of x in each case 9 exact
Variance of x in each case 11 exact
Mean of y in each case 7.50 (to 2 decimal places)
Variance of y in each case 4.122 or 4.127 (to 3 d.p.)
Correlation between x and y in each case 0.816 (to 3 d.p.)
Linear regression line in each case y = 3.00 + 0.500x (to 2 d.p. and 3 d.p. resp.)
But see the graphical analysis –
While R has always been great in emphasizing graphical analysis, thanks in part due to work by H Wickham and others, SAS products and  language has also modified its approach at http://www.sas.com/technologies/analytics/statistics/datadiscovery/
 SAS Visual Data Discovery combines top-selling SAS products (Base SAS, SAS/STAT® and SAS/GRAPH®), along with two interfaces (SAS® Enterprise Guide® for guided tasks and batch analysis and JMP® software for discovery and exploratory analysis).
 and  ODS Statistical Graphs at
While ODS Statistical graphs is still not as smooth as say R’s GGPLOT2 http://tinyurl.com/ggplot2-book, it still is a progressive step
Pretty graphs make for better decisions too !

 

 

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