Data Science and Databases

Analysts have come to recognize social network data as a virtual treasure trove of information for sensing public opinion trends and groundswells of support. In this article, Toptal Engineer Elder Santos describes the techniques he employed for a proof-of-concept that effectively analyzed Twitter Trend Topics to predict, as a sample test case, regional voting patterns in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election.

Machine learning has changed the way we deal with data. Data driven problems, that are difficult to solve using standard methods, can often be tackled with much more ease using machine learning algorithms. In this article, we will explore Azure Machine Learning features and capabilities through solving one of the problems that we face in our everyday lives.

In today’s data-driven world, researchers are busy answering interesting questions by churning through huge volumes of data. Some obvious challenges they face are due to the sheer size of the dataset they have to deal with. In this article, we take a peek at a simple business intelligence platform implemented on top of the MongoDB Aggregation Pipeline.

In this post, Toptal engineer Radek Ostrowski introduces Apache Spark—fast, easy-to-use, and flexible big data processing. Billed as offering “lightning fast cluster computing”, the Spark technology stack incorporates a comprehensive set of capabilities, including SparkSQL, Spark Streaming, MLlib (for machine learning), and GraphX. Spark may very well be the “child prodigy of big data,” rapidly gaining a dominant position in the complex world of big data processing.

Although the most wide-spread and supported way of running Django is on a Linux system (e.g., with uwsgi and nginx), it actually doesn’t take much work to get it to run on IIS. In this article, Toptal Engineer Ivan Voras walks you through a step-by-step tutorial, clearly explaining how to install Django on IIS.

When coming across the term “text search,” one usually thinks of a large body of text which is indexed in a way that makes it possible to quickly look up one or more search terms when they are entered by a user. This is a classic problem in computer science to which many solutions exist.

But how about a reverse scenario? What if what’s available for indexing beforehand is a group of search phrases, and only at runtime is a large body of text presented for searching?

Bitcoin blockchain is the backbone of the network and provides a tamper-proof data structure, providing a shared public ledger open to all. This article provides insight in blockchain technology, current status and its potential.