Book Image

Machine Learning with R - Third Edition

By : Brett Lantz
Book Image

Machine Learning with R - Third Edition

By: Brett Lantz

Overview of this book

Machine learning, at its core, is concerned with transforming data into actionable knowledge. R offers a powerful set of machine learning methods to quickly and easily gain insight from your data. Machine Learning with R, Third Edition provides a hands-on, readable guide to applying machine learning to real-world problems. Whether you are an experienced R user or new to the language, Brett Lantz teaches you everything you need to uncover key insights, make new predictions, and visualize your findings. This new 3rd edition updates the classic R data science book to R 3.6 with newer and better libraries, advice on ethical and bias issues in machine learning, and an introduction to deep learning. Find powerful new insights in your data; discover machine learning with R.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Machine Learning with R - Third Edition
Contributors
Preface
Other Books You May Enjoy
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Index

Understanding classification rules


Classification rules represent knowledge in the form of logical if-else statements that assign a class to unlabeled examples. They are specified in terms of an antecedent and a consequent, which form a statement that says "if this happens, then that happens." The antecedent comprises certain combinations of feature values, while the consequent specifies the class value to assign if the rule's conditions are met. A simple rule might state, "if the hard drive is making a clicking sound, then it is about to fail."

Rule learners are a closely related sibling of decision tree learners and are often used for similar types of tasks. Like decision trees, they can be used for applications that generate knowledge for future action, such as:

  • Identifying conditions that lead to hardware failure in mechanical devices

  • Describing the key characteristics of groups of people for customer segmentation

  • Finding conditions that precede large drops or increases in the prices of...