All about Data Science
Kalimera! Today is our last day of activities for the trip 🙁 We started our day at UNIC with a presentation by Dr. Trihinas about data science. He talked about data science, supply chain analytics, data mining, and machine learning. His definition of internet is an interconnection of things for data exchange and processing, which is a very simple way to put it. Data science combines the skills of hacking, math and statistics, and substantive expertise to transform raw data into something that can be used. Supply Chain analytics has 4 categories of insight: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive insight explains what happened, an example would be saying sales for product X went up 20%. Diagnostic insight explains why something happened, and example would be saying prices rose due to the oil shortage. Predictive insight forecasts what may happen, and example is saying the CTR will increase by 3%. Prescriptive insight recommends an action that can be taken, this is where we see the use if AI in supply chain analytics. Data mining is something I have bever heard before the lecture today, and it was interesting to learn about. Data mining is essentially the efficient extraction of interesting patterns from the data. It is not concrete or immediate. This is used mainly in Descriptive and Predictive insights. We also see the use of algorithms to model something in the real world, like Google Maps. Machine Larning, ML, is a topic I have never read about before, but the presentation today really helped to build my understanding. ML uses data from past experiences to design models representing reality to a machine. There is the training phase and the testing phase. During testing we feed the machine the input and the output we want, which leads to a model of the program we will run. Then, we run the program with our inputs and receive a representation of the model. Learning more about data science today was really cool, I was engaged the whole time and asked questions at the end!
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency of the World
Next, we had a presentation by the CEO of UNIC, Dr. Polemitis about databases and blockchain. UNIC was the first university to launch a blockchain program in 2013. He says that we are only 10-years into a 40 yearlong uprise in databases and blockchain. In the stat of the world today, we live in a world full of data basses. Almost everything we do and interreact with is a form of a database, which is honestly crazy to think about. Our data is stored in hundreds of places and ways through the world! Due to the advanced economy, we have grown into, private database business’ like the publishing industry have closed due to the internet. Now with databases and blockchain, we can see the news from each part of the world right form out smartphones. ML, which we learned about earlier, is a centralizing technology. We learned today that it is easy to shut down a centralized business compared to a non-centralized one. For example, before Uber was a thing, the taxis industry was not centralized. Now, we can control Ubers and Taxis from our phones, and we don’t even pay with cash anymore! This is an example of a centralized company. Then we talked about blockchains, which are essentially databases without an administrator. Cryptocurrency is a form of a blockchain, which I did not know that!
Free time in the old town
After our day at UNIC, we had about 6 hours of free time before dinner. We took this as a chance to have one final walk around the old city of Nicosia before we leave tonight. I did last minute souvenir shopping and got pasta for lunch! This old city is so cute and charming, I am going to miss the European old town vibe! I also used free time as a change to begin packing up my suitcase for the flight home, which took way longer than I anticipated it taking. I truly had the best time on this trip, and I am sad to say goodbye to Cyprus. Andio!
