Chapter 2. Applying Machine Learning to Structured Data
Structured data is a term used for any data that resides in a fixed field within a record or file, two such examples being relational databases and spreadsheets. Usually, structured data is presented in a table in which each column presents a type of value, and each row represents a new entry. Its structured format means that this type of data lends itself to classical statistical analysis, which is also why most data science and analysis work is done on structured data.
In day-to-day life, structured data is also the most common type of data available to businesses, and most machine learning problems that need to be solved in finance deal with structured data in one way or another. The fundamentals of any modern company's day-to-day running is built around structured data, including, transactions, order books, option prices, and suppliers, which are all examples of information usually collected in spreadsheets or databases.
This chapter...