Book Image

Learning Predictive Analytics with R

By : Eric Mayor
Book Image

Learning Predictive Analytics with R

By: Eric Mayor

Overview of this book

This book is packed with easy-to-follow guidelines that explain the workings of the many key data mining tools of R, which are used to discover knowledge from your data. You will learn how to perform key predictive analytics tasks using R, such as train and test predictive models for classification and regression tasks, score new data sets and so on. All chapters will guide you in acquiring the skills in a practical way. Most chapters also include a theoretical introduction that will sharpen your understanding of the subject matter and invite you to go further. The book familiarizes you with the most common data mining tools of R, such as k-means, hierarchical regression, linear regression, association rules, principal component analysis, multilevel modeling, k-NN, Naïve Bayes, decision trees, and text mining. It also provides a description of visualization techniques using the basic visualization tools of R as well as lattice for visualizing patterns in data organized in groups. This book is invaluable for anyone fascinated by the data mining opportunities offered by GNU R and its packages.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Learning Predictive Analytics with R
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Exercises and Solutions
Index

The roulette case


Roulette is a betting game which rewards the player's correct prediction of its outcome. The game consists of a ball spinning around a wheel which rotates in the opposite direction. The wheel features 37 numbered pockets. Each of the number has a color (18 are red, 18 are black and one, the zero, is green). The aim of the game is to bet on one or several outcomes regarding the pocket on which the ball lands. Numbers can range from 0 to 36, and several types of bets are available such as the color of the number, it being even or odd, and several other characteristics related to the number or the position on the wheel (as marked on the betting grid). The image below is a representation of an European roulette wheel. The ball is represented by the tiny white circle. In this example it landed on the pocket corresponding to the number 3.

A representation of a roulette wheel

Numbers are ordered on the wheel in such a way that the position of a number on the wheel is as unrelated...