Book Image

Practical Machine Learning

By : Sunila Gollapudi
Book Image

Practical Machine Learning

By: Sunila Gollapudi

Overview of this book

This book explores an extensive range of machine learning techniques uncovering hidden tricks and tips for several types of data using practical and real-world examples. While machine learning can be highly theoretical, this book offers a refreshing hands-on approach without losing sight of the underlying principles. Inside, a full exploration of the various algorithms gives you high-quality guidance so you can begin to see just how effective machine learning is at tackling contemporary challenges of big data This is the only book you need to implement a whole suite of open source tools, frameworks, and languages in machine learning. We will cover the leading data science languages, Python and R, and the underrated but powerful Julia, as well as a range of other big data platforms including Spark, Hadoop, and Mahout. Practical Machine Learning is an essential resource for the modern data scientists who want to get to grips with its real-world application. With this book, you will not only learn the fundamentals of machine learning but dive deep into the complexities of real world data before moving on to using Hadoop and its wider ecosystem of tools to process and manage your structured and unstructured data. You will explore different machine learning techniques for both supervised and unsupervised learning; from decision trees to Naïve Bayes classifiers and linear and clustering methods, you will learn strategies for a truly advanced approach to the statistical analysis of data. The book also explores the cutting-edge advancements in machine learning, with worked examples and guidance on deep learning and reinforcement learning, providing you with practical demonstrations and samples that help take the theory–and mystery–out of even the most advanced machine learning methodologies.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Practical Machine Learning
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Types of clustering


Cluster analysis is all about the kind of algorithms that can be used to find clusters automatically given the data. There are primarily two classes of clustering algorithm; they are as follows:

  • The Hierarchical Clustering algorithms

  • The Partitional Clustering algorithms

The Hierarchical clustering algorithms define clusters that have a hierarchy, while the partitional clustering algorithms define clusters that divide the dataset into mutually disjoint partitions.

Hierarchical clustering

The Hierarchical clustering is about defining clusters that have a hierarchy, and this is done either by iteratively merging smaller clusters into a larger cluster, or dividing a larger cluster into smaller clusters. This hierarchy of clusters that are produced by a clustering algorithm is called a dendogram. A dendogram is one of the ways in which the hierarchical clusters can be represented, and the user can realize different clustering based on the level at which the dendogram is defined...