Where the assumptions behind the two-tower model architecture break — and how to go beyond (Image created by the author using generative AI)Two-tower models are among the most common architectural design choices in modern recommender systems — the key idea is to have one tower that learns relevance, and a second, shallow, tower that learns…

A Spotify Data Scientist’s guide to developing a job-hunting strategy that can get you offers A snapshot of the survey I conducted on Blind — Image by AuthorI recently ran a survey among data scientists and found out this shocking number — 86% are blindly sending out job applications, and hoping for the best. Hoping…

Learn about Radial Treemaps and create your own with Python Radial-Treemap by Nick GerendThe Treemap Concept The “Treemap” was introduced by Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland in the early 1990s¹. Simply put, it’s an efficient way of displaying hierarchical data as a set of nested rectangles. Although the concept is simple, the arrangement…

Reinforcement learning without the boilerplate code Created by the author with Leonardo Ai.In my previous articles about reinforcement learning, I have shown you how to implement (deep) Q-learning using nothing but a bit of numpy and TensorFlow. While this was an important step towards understanding how these algorithms work under the hood, the code tended…

Three stories about the data career journey “The number 12 is considered a cosmic number — marking the 12 months, the 12 signs of the zodiac, and the 12 stations of the Moon and the Sun” [Photo by Michael Skok on Unsplash]In my previous position, I created end-of-year reports for my business colleagues and CEOs.…

A deep exploration of TiDE, its implementation using Darts and a real life use case comparison with DeepAR (a Transformer architecture) As industries continue to evolve, the importance of an accurate forecasting becomes a non-negotiable asset wether you work in e-commerce, healthcare, retail or even in agriculture. The importance of being able to foresee what…

Data Visualization, Data Storytelling Simplify your overwhelmed charts by using slope charts: a tutorial in Python Altair Image by AuthorWe may plot charts to include as many concepts as possible in our visualization. As a result, our chart could be difficult to read and distracting. For this reason, before plotting anything, sit in your chair…

During a road trip we discussed how this tool was interesting but not necessarily useful. My friend could plug in numbers and see what happened, but that didn’t help make staffing decisions any easier, as it was basically educated trial and error. What would be more helpful was a system where you could set a…

A step-by-step walkthrough of inter-participant and intra-participant classification performed on wearable sensor data of runners Image by authorRunning data collected using wearable sensors can provide insights about a runner’s performance and overall technique. The data that comes from these sensors are usually time series by nature. This tutorial runs through a fatigue detection task where…

How can we think about thinking in the simplest way possible? Opening Pandora’s box (image by author)In the 17th century, René Descartes introduced a relatively new idea — the dictum “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). This simple formulation served as the basis of Western philosophy and defined for centuries our ideas on…