People Decide... and so do Countries!

Periodically, 193 different countries gather together to make important policy decisions on a wide variety of global topics, including humanitarian crises, peace and security. Deliberations take place in the context of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and, after consensuses have been reached, resolutions are passed.

Since the first General Assembly gathered in 1946, almost 18,000 resolutions have been drafted and passed. That represents a high volume of documents to analyse for anyone who wants to understand how countries decided in the past (and how they might possibly decide in the future).

A Beginner's Guide to Apache Flink – 12 Key Terms, Explained

Overview

In this post, I will go through 12 core Apache Flink concepts to better understand what it does and how it works. This article could perfectly serve as a beginner's overview of Flink and Streaming engine terminology.

1.      What is Apache Flink?

At first glance, the origins of Apache Flink can be traced back to June 2008 as a researching project of the Database Systems and Information Management (DIMA) Group at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin in Germany.

Apache Flink is an open source platform for distributed stream and batch data processing, initially it was designed as an alternative to MapReduce and the Hadoop Distributed File System (HFDS) in Hadoop origins.

According to the Apache Flink project, it is an open source platform for distributed stream and batch data processing. Flink’s core is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations over data streams. Flink also builds batch processing on top of the streaming engine, overlaying native iteration support, managed memory, and program optimization.”

IT4BI becomes BDMA!

The Master's Degree in Information Technologies for Business Intelligence (IT4BI) received its first generation of students in September 2012. One year later, the second generation of which I was part, would be welcomed to start studies in Brussels as well.

Since its beginning, IT4BI has been facilitating learning, research and international collaboration in a positive and friendly atmosphere, thus providing the means for personal and professional development of many people around the World.

By the end of September 2016, the fifth generation of IT4BI students will have started their studies in Brussels while the third generation completes their thesis defences and the fourth generation begins their specialisation semesters in Barcelona, Berlin and Paris.

In September 2017, IT4BI will become BDMA, which stands for "Big Data Management and Analytics". BDMA focuses on the new needs of research, education, and industry with respect to Big Data and will keep on receiving the support of the European Commission as part of the Erasmus+ Programme.

IT4BI has literally changed many lives and there are no doubts that BDMA will keep on doing so. You may learn more about BDMA programme on the official website.

Codeforces Submissions: Dataset for Source Code Analysis

Codeforces Submissions Dataset

I wanted to do some analysis on source code, and I needed a dataset where code snippets are labeled with the programming language they are in. I scraped this data from codeforces.com, which is a website for holding programming contests. In this post, I share this data.

tl;dr Scroll down to get the links.

Business Intelligence in the Non-Profit Sector

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, a sufficient amount of correct, relevant, concise and up-to-date information is a key input in any decision-making process. This not only applies to profit-driven organisations but it is also relevant for the non-profit sector.

For instance, in a non-profit organisation, having access to membership information of good quality and in an efficient way is of utmost importance at the moment of defining membership strategies. Furthermore, good information is also crucial when it comes to translating strategies into tactics and, subsequently, turning the latter into action on the operational landscape.

Test-Driven Machine Learning

Test-Driven Machine Learning

The book “Test-Driven Machine Learning” by Justin Bozonier, published by Packt Publishing, is in print now. I was a technical reviewer of this book, and in this post you will learn some details about it. The book is available on the publisher’s website as well as on Safari Books Library.

Data Science Interview Questions

Source: Data Science: An Introduction

Our IT4BI Master studies finished, and the next logical step after graduation is finding a job. I was interested in Data Science jobs and this post is a summary of my interview experience and preparation.

The term “Data Science” is not yet well establish, so interviews for Data Science jobs might include a very broad range of questions, depending on the interpretation of the term by a particular company. In this post I attempt to organize Data Science interview questions in some usable form, but it might also be biased by how I see Data Science myself. I hope you also can find it useful.