Use popular data mining techniques in Microsoft Excel to better understand machine learning methods. Software tools and programming language packages take data input and deliver data mining results directly, presenting no insight on working mechanics and creating a chasm between input and output. This is where Excel can help. Excel allows you to work with data in a transparent manner. When you open an Excel file, data is visible immediately and you can work with it directly. Intermediate results can be examined while you are conducting your mining task, offering a deeper understanding of how data is manipulated and results are obtained. These are critical aspects of the model construction process that are hidden in software tools and programming language packages. This book teaches you data mining through Excel. You will learn how Excel has an advantage in data mining when the data sets are not too large. It can give you a visual representation of data mining, building confidence in your results. You will go through every step manually, which offers not only an active learning experience, but teaches you how the mining process works and how to find the internal hidden patterns inside the data. What You Will Learn Comprehend data mining using a visual step-by-step approachBuild on a theoretical introduction of a data mining method, followed by an Excel implementationUnveil the mystery behind machine learning algorithms, making a complex topic accessible to everyoneBecome skilled in creative uses of Excel formulas and functionsObtain hands-on experience with data mining and Excel Who This Book Is For Anyone who is interested in learning data mining or machine learning, especially data science visual learners and people skilled in Excel, who would like to explore data science topics and/or expand their Excel skills. A basic or beginner level understanding of Excel is recommended.

Data Mining for Business Analytics: Concepts, Techniques, and Applications in Python presents an applied approach to data mining concepts and methods, using Python software for illustration Readers will learn how to implement a variety of popular data mining algorithms in Python (a free and open-source software) to tackle business problems and opportunities. This is the sixth version of this successful text, and the first using Python. It covers both statistical and machine learning algorithms for prediction, classification, visualization, dimension reduction, recommender systems, clustering, text mining and network analysis. It also includes: A new co-author, Peter Gedeck, who brings both experience teaching business analytics courses using Python, and expertise in the application of machine learning methods to the drug-discovery process A new section on ethical issues in data mining Updates and new material based on feedback from instructors teaching MBA, undergraduate, diploma and executive courses, and from their students More than a dozen case studies demonstrating applications for the data mining techniques described End-of-chapter exercises that help readers gauge and expand their comprehension and competency of the material presented A companion website with more than two dozen data sets, and instructor materials including exercise solutions, PowerPoint slides, and case solutions Data Mining for Business Analytics: Concepts, Techniques, and Applications in Python is an ideal textbook for graduate and upper-undergraduate level courses in data mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. This new edition is also an excellent reference for analysts, researchers, and practitioners working with quantitative methods in the fields of business, finance, marketing, computer science, and information technology. “This book has by far the most comprehensive review of business analytics methods that I have ever seen, covering everything from classical approaches such as linear and logistic regression, through to modern methods like neural networks, bagging and boosting, and even much more business specific procedures such as social network analysis and text mining. If not the bible, it is at the least a definitive manual on the subject.” —Gareth M. James, University of Southern California and co-author (with Witten, Hastie and Tibshirani) of the best-selling book An Introduction to Statistical Learning, with Applications in R

Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, Third Edition, offers a thorough grounding in machine learning concepts as well as practical advice on applying machine learning tools and techniques in real-world data mining situations. This highly anticipated third edition of the most acclaimed work on data mining and machine learning will teach you everything you need to know about preparing inputs, interpreting outputs, evaluating results, and the algorithmic methods at the heart of successful data mining. Thorough updates reflect the technical changes and modernizations that have taken place in the field since the last edition, including new material on Data Transformations, Ensemble Learning, Massive Data Sets, Multi-instance Learning, plus a new version of the popular Weka machine learning software developed by the authors. Witten, Frank, and Hall include both tried-and-true techniques of today as well as methods at the leading edge of contemporary research. The book is targeted at information systems practitioners, programmers, consultants, developers, information technology managers, specification writers, data analysts, data modelers, database R&D professionals, data warehouse engineers, data mining professionals. The book will also be useful for professors and students of upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level data mining and machine learning courses who want to incorporate data mining as part of their data management knowledge base and expertise. - Provides a thorough grounding in machine learning concepts as well as practical advice on applying the tools and techniques to your data mining projects - Offers concrete tips and techniques for performance improvement that work by transforming the input or output in machine learning methods - Includes downloadable Weka software toolkit, a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks—in an updated, interactive interface. Algorithms in toolkit cover: data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, visualization

A practical guide to getting the most out of Excel, using it for data preparation, applying machine learning models (including cloud services) and understanding the outcome of the data analysis. Key FeaturesUse Microsoft's product Excel to build advanced forecasting models using varied examples Cover range of machine learning tasks such as data mining, data analytics, smart visualization, and more Derive data-driven techniques using Excel plugins and APIs without much code required Book Description We have made huge progress in teaching computers to perform difficult tasks, especially those that are repetitive and time-consuming for humans. Excel users, of all levels, can feel left behind by this innovation wave. The truth is that a large amount of the work needed to develop and use a machine learning model can be done in Excel. The book starts by giving a general introduction to machine learning, making every concept clear and understandable. Then, it shows every step of a machine learning project, from data collection, reading from different data sources, developing models, and visualizing the results using Excel features and offerings. In every chapter, there are several examples and hands-on exercises that will show the reader how to combine Excel functions, add-ins, and connections to databases and to cloud services to reach the desired goal: building a full data analysis flow. Different machine learning models are shown, tailored to the type of data to be analyzed. At the end of the book, the reader is presented with some advanced use cases using Automated Machine Learning, and artificial neural network, which simplifies the analysis task and represents the future of machine learning. What you will learnUse Excel to preview and cleanse datasetsUnderstand correlations between variables and optimize the input to machine learning modelsUse and evaluate different machine learning models from ExcelUnderstand the use of different visualizationsLearn the basic concepts and calculations to understand how artificial neural networks workLearn how to connect Excel to the Microsoft Azure cloudGet beyond proof of concepts and build fully functional data analysis flowsWho this book is for This book is for data analysis, machine learning enthusiasts, project managers, and someone who doesn't want to code much for performing core tasks of machine learning. Each example will help you perform end-to-end smart analytics. Working knowledge of Excel is required.

Useful business analysis requires you to effectively transform data into actionable information. This book helps you use SQL and Excel to extract business information from relational databases and use that data to define business dimensions, store transactions about customers, produce results, and more. Each chapter explains when and why to perform a particular type of business analysis in order to obtain useful results, how to design and perform the analysis using SQL and Excel, and what the results should look like.

Provides in-depth coverage of basic and advanced topics in data mining and knowledge discovery Presents the most popular data mining algorithms in an easy to follow format Includes instructional tutorials on applying the various data mining algorithms Provides several interesting datasets ready to be mined Offers in-depth coverage of RapidMiner Studio and Weka’s Explorer interface Teaches the reader (student,) hands-on, about data mining using RapidMiner Studio and Weka Gives instructors a wealth of helpful resources, including all RapidMiner processes used for the tutorials and for solving the end of chapter exercises. Instructors will be able to get off the starting block with minimal effort Extra resources include screenshot sequences for all RapidMiner and Weka tutorials and demonstrations, available for students and instructors alike The latest version of all freely available materials can also be downloaded at: http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~sa7379bt/

Data Science gets thrown around in the press like it'smagic. Major retailers are predicting everything from when theircustomers are pregnant to when they want a new pair of ChuckTaylors. It's a brave new world where seemingly meaningless datacan be transformed into valuable insight to drive smart businessdecisions. But how does one exactly do data science? Do you have to hireone of these priests of the dark arts, the "data scientist," toextract this gold from your data? Nope. Data science is little more than using straight-forward steps toprocess raw data into actionable insight. And in DataSmart, author and data scientist John Foreman will show you howthat's done within the familiar environment of aspreadsheet. Why a spreadsheet? It's comfortable! You get to look at the dataevery step of the way, building confidence as you learn the tricksof the trade. Plus, spreadsheets are a vendor-neutral place tolearn data science without the hype. But don't let the Excel sheets fool you. This is a book forthose serious about learning the analytic techniques, the math andthe magic, behind big data. Each chapter will cover a different technique in aspreadsheet so you can follow along: Mathematical optimization, including non-linear programming andgenetic algorithms Clustering via k-means, spherical k-means, and graphmodularity Data mining in graphs, such as outlier detection Supervised AI through logistic regression, ensemble models, andbag-of-words models Forecasting, seasonal adjustments, and prediction intervalsthrough monte carlo simulation Moving from spreadsheets into the R programming language You get your hands dirty as you work alongside John through eachtechnique. But never fear, the topics are readily applicable andthe author laces humor throughout. You'll even learnwhat a dead squirrel has to do with optimization modeling, whichyou no doubt are dying to know.