Pan Wu – Medium

Jun 23

Driving Data Science Initiative: a Simple Four-Stage Model

An “initiative” is defined as “a new plan or process to achieve something or solve a problem”, according to the Cambridge dictionary; and a “data science initiative” creates value from data: it may manifest into a series of data insights to guide company making strategic decisions, or data product to…

Data Science

11 min read

Jul 14, 2021

In my opinion, it is relatively straightforward to simulate the situation where expanded targeting…

In my opinion, it is relatively straightforward to simulate the situation where expanded targeting is enabled, and then directly surface the simulated impression gain to advertisers. So I am not sure why a ML model is needed here

1 min read

Published in Towards Data Science

·May 23, 2021

Research Mindset for Data Scientists: The “First Principle” Thinking

“Do I need a Ph.D. degree to be a Data Scientist”? This is a common question asked by many interested in joining the field. Quite a few blogs elaborate on reasons why you do not need a Ph.D. degree to become a Data Scientist (e.g. here is one) and I…

Data Science

9 min read

Research Mindset for Data Scientist: the “First Principle” Thinking

Published in Towards Data Science

·Sep 21, 2020

Understanding Python Multithreading and Multiprocessing via Simulation

Learning-by-doing: a simple simulation can help with better understand complicated ideas like multithreading and multiprocessing. — Python is a great general-purpose language with applications in various fields. However, sometimes you just hope it can speed up further. One way to improve the speed is to parallel the works, with either multithreading or multiprocessing. There are numerous great resources out there that illustrate the concepts of both…

Python

3 min read

Published in Towards Data Science

·Aug 18, 2020

Problem Solving as Data Scientist: a Case Study

My thoughts on how data scientists solve problems, along with sharing a case study using one favorite project in my first job — There are two myths about how data scientists solve problems: one is that the problem naturally exists, hence the challenge for a data scientist is to use an algorithm and put it into production. Another myth considers data scientists always try leveraging the most advanced algorithms, the fancier model equals…

Data Science

13 min read

Problem Solving as Data Scientist: a Case Study

Mar 1, 2020

Learnings from Parenting: Clockwise

My son helps me to notice an unconscious egocentric bias and to become better at work One day, I opened a new toy for my soon-to-be-3-year-old son. It was a ready-to-assemble airplane: with available tools like a screwdriver, bolts, and nuts. …

Parenting

4 min read

Published in Towards Data Science

·Jan 24, 2020

How to innovate in Data Science

Sharing my thoughts on innovation, along with one favorite Data Science project in 2014 — Millions of innovations happen in the world every day. Innovations create new products, services, business models, technologies, and even new scientific fields; if there were no innovation, we would be living in a totally different and boring place. …

Data Science

11 min read

Published in Towards Data Science

·Dec 28, 2019

Building my 2020 reading list with a simple Python script

Using Requests and BeautifulSoup, I extracted the historic New York Times Best Sellers (Business topic) lists to enrich my reading list — New Year Resolution: 12 books in 2020 I concede that I didn’t read too many books in the past a few years. With MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) evolution started in 2012, I spent most of my spare time across Coursera, edX, and LinkedIn Learning. Many contents on MOOC illustrate knowledge (e.g. …

Python

6 min read

Published in Towards Data Science

·Dec 3, 2019

Using Git in Data Science: the Solo Master

Git is a very popular version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is well used in Data Science projects to keep track of code and maintain parallel development. Git can be used in a very complicated way, however…

Git

7 min read

Using Git in Data Science: the Solo Master

Published in Towards Data Science

·Nov 18, 2019

My First Data Science Project

Why am I writing the post As one who is in the Data Science field for a while, I received quite a few questions from enthusiastic graduating students asking “how to become a data scientist” or “what do data scientists do on a daily basis”. On the other side, I occasionally hear some voices joking the…

Data Science

7 min read