Book Image

Principles of Data Science

Book Image

Principles of Data Science

Overview of this book

Need to turn your skills at programming into effective data science skills? Principles of Data Science is created to help you join the dots between mathematics, programming, and business analysis. With this book, you’ll feel confident about asking—and answering—complex and sophisticated questions of your data to move from abstract and raw statistics to actionable ideas. With a unique approach that bridges the gap between mathematics and computer science, this books takes you through the entire data science pipeline. Beginning with cleaning and preparing data, and effective data mining strategies and techniques, you’ll move on to build a comprehensive picture of how every piece of the data science puzzle fits together. Learn the fundamentals of computational mathematics and statistics, as well as some pseudocode being used today by data scientists and analysts. You’ll get to grips with machine learning, discover the statistical models that help you take control and navigate even the densest datasets, and find out how to create powerful visualizations that communicate what your data means.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Principles of Data Science
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 6. Advanced Probability

In the previous chapter, we went over the basics of probability and how we can apply simple theorems to complex tasks. To briefly summarize, probability is the mathematics of modeling events that may or may not occur. We use formulas in order to describe these events and even look at how multiple events can behave together.

In this chapter, we will explore more complicated theorems of probability and how we can use them in a predictive capacity.

Advanced topics, such as Bayes theorem and random variables, give rise to common machine learning algorithms, such as the Naïve Bayes algorithm (also covered in this book). This chapter will focus on some of the more advanced topics in probability theory, including the following topics:

  • Exhaustive events

  • Bayes theorem

  • Basic prediction rules

  • Random variables

We have one more definition to look at before we get started (the last one before the fun stuff, I promise). We have to look at collectively exhaustive events.