Book Image

Machine Learning with R

By : Brett Lantz
Book Image

Machine Learning with R

By: Brett Lantz

Overview of this book

Machine learning, at its core, is concerned with transforming data into actionable knowledge. This fact makes machine learning well-suited to the present-day era of "big data" and "data science". Given the growing prominence of R—a cross-platform, zero-cost statistical programming environment—there has never been a better time to start applying machine learning. Whether you are new to data science or a veteran, machine learning with R offers a powerful set of methods for quickly and easily gaining insight from your data. "Machine Learning with R" is a practical tutorial that uses hands-on examples to step through real-world application of machine learning. Without shying away from the technical details, we will explore Machine Learning with R using clear and practical examples. Well-suited to machine learning beginners or those with experience. Explore R to find the answer to all of your questions. How can we use machine learning to transform data into action? Using practical examples, we will explore how to prepare data for analysis, choose a machine learning method, and measure the success of the process. We will learn how to apply machine learning methods to a variety of common tasks including classification, prediction, forecasting, market basket analysis, and clustering. By applying the most effective machine learning methods to real-world problems, you will gain hands-on experience that will transform the way you think about data. "Machine Learning with R" will provide you with the analytical tools you need to quickly gain insight from complex data.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Machine Learning with R
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
9
Finding Groups of Data – Clustering with k-means
Index

Improving the performance of R


R has a reputation for being slow and memory inefficient, a reputation that is at least somewhat earned. These faults are largely unnoticed on a modern PC for datasets of many thousands of records, but datasets with a million records or more can push the limits of what is currently possible with consumer-grade hardware. The problem is worsened if the data have many features or if complex learning algorithms are being used.

Note

CRAN has a high performance computing task view that lists packages pushing the boundaries on what is possible in R: http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/HighPerformanceComputing.html.

Packages that extend R past the capabilities of the base package are being developed rapidly. This work comes primarily on two fronts: some packages add the capability to manage extremely large datasets by making data operations faster or by allowing the size of data to exceed the amount of available system memory; others allow R to work faster, perhaps by...