Book Image

Data Science Using Python and R

By : Chantal D. Larose, Daniel T. Larose
Book Image

Data Science Using Python and R

By: Chantal D. Larose, Daniel T. Larose

Overview of this book

Data science is hot. Bloomberg named a data scientist as the ‘hottest job in America’. Python and R are the top two open-source data science tools using which you can produce hands-on solutions to real-world business problems, using state-of-the-art techniques. Each chapter in the book presents step-by-step instructions and walkthroughs for solving data science problems using Python and R. You’ll learn how to prepare data, perform exploratory data analysis, and prepare to model the data. As you progress, you’ll explore what are decision trees and how to use them. You’ll also learn about model evaluation, misclassification costs, naïve Bayes classification, and neural networks. The later chapters provide comprehensive information about clustering, regression modeling, dimension reduction, and association rules mining. The book also throws light on exciting new topics, such as random forests and general linear models. The book emphasizes data-driven error costs to enhance profitability, which avoids the common pitfalls that may cost a company millions of dollars. By the end of this book, you’ll have enough knowledge and confidence to start providing solutions to data science problems using R and Python.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
17
INDEX
18
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

12.11 WHEN IS MULTICOLLINEARITY NOT A PROBLEM?

Now, depending on the task confronting the analyst, multicollinearity may not in fact present a fatal defect. Weiss1 notes that multicollinearity “does not adversely affect the ability of the sample regression equation to predict the response variable.” He adds that multicollinearity does not significantly affect point estimates of the target variable, confidence intervals for the mean response value, or prediction intervals for a randomly selected response value. However, the data scientist must therefore strictly limit the use of a multicollinear model to estimation and prediction of the target variable. Interpretation of the model would not be appropriate, since the individual coefficients may not make sense, in the presence of multicollinearity. To summarize, models not accounting for multicollinearity may be used for estimation, but not for description or interpretation.