Book Image

Unsupervised Learning with R

By : Erik Rodríguez Pacheco
Book Image

Unsupervised Learning with R

By: Erik Rodríguez Pacheco

Overview of this book

<p>The R Project for Statistical Computing provides an excellent platform to tackle data processing, data manipulation, modeling, and presentation. The capabilities of this language, its freedom of use, and a very active community of users makes R one of the best tools to learn and implement unsupervised learning.</p> <p>If you are new to R or want to learn about unsupervised learning, this book is for you. Packed with critical information, this book will guide you through a conceptual explanation and practical examples programmed directly into the R console.</p> <p>Starting from the beginning, this book introduces you to unsupervised learning and provides a high-level introduction to the topic. We quickly move on to discuss the application of key concepts and techniques for exploratory data analysis. The book then teaches you to identify groups with the help of clustering methods or building association rules. Finally, it provides alternatives for the treatment of high-dimensional datasets, as well as using dimensionality reduction techniques and feature selection techniques.</p> <p>By the end of this book, you will be able to implement unsupervised learning and various approaches associated with it in real-world projects.</p>
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Unsupervised Learning with R
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Summary


In this chapter, we explained what we consider relevant aspects in relation to one of the known techniques in unsupervised learning: cluster analysis.

We began by explaining the need to perform transformations in the data and some techniques to do so, and then we turned to the fundamental aspects of clustering analysis, starting with K-Means and ending with the hierarchical clustering.

Additionally, we provided an alternative for handling qualitative variables in mixed datasets, and some tips for choosing the appropriate algorithm as well as some options for plotting hierarchical clustering.

In the next chapter, we will learn about another grouping technique, the association rules. The association process makes groups of observations and attempts to discover links or associations between different attributes of group. These associations become rules that can, in turn, be used to support future decisions.