<s>
Data	B-General_Concept
preparation	I-General_Concept
is	O
the	O
act	O
of	O
manipulating	O
(	O
or	O
pre-processing	O
)	O
raw	O
data	O
(	O
which	O
may	O
come	O
from	O
disparate	O
data	O
sources	O
)	O
into	O
a	O
form	O
that	O
can	O
readily	O
and	O
accurately	O
be	O
analysed	O
,	O
e.g.	O
</s>
<s>
Data	B-General_Concept
preparation	I-General_Concept
is	O
the	O
first	O
step	O
in	O
data	O
analytics	O
projects	O
and	O
can	O
include	O
many	O
discrete	O
tasks	O
such	O
as	O
loading	O
data	O
or	O
data	O
ingestion	O
,	O
data	B-General_Concept
fusion	I-General_Concept
,	O
data	O
cleaning	O
,	O
data	B-General_Concept
augmentation	I-General_Concept
,	O
and	O
data	O
delivery	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
See	O
also	O
data	B-General_Concept
definition	I-General_Concept
specification	I-General_Concept
.	O
</s>
<s>
databases	O
,	O
business	B-Application
applications	I-Application
)	O
that	O
provide	O
data	O
and	O
formats	O
that	O
data	O
can	O
arrive	O
in	O
,	O
data	B-General_Concept
preparation	I-General_Concept
can	O
be	O
quite	O
involved	O
and	O
complex	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
There	O
are	O
many	O
tools	O
and	O
technologies	O
that	O
are	O
used	O
for	O
data	B-General_Concept
preparation	I-General_Concept
.	O
</s>
<s>
This	O
reuse	O
provides	O
a	O
significant	O
productivity	O
boost	O
when	O
compared	O
to	O
more	O
traditional	O
manual	O
and	O
hand-coding	O
methods	O
for	O
data	B-General_Concept
preparation	I-General_Concept
.	O
</s>
