Book Image

Python Machine Learning, Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Sebastian Raschka, Vahid Mirjalili
Book Image

Python Machine Learning, Second Edition - Second Edition

By: Sebastian Raschka, Vahid Mirjalili

Overview of this book

Publisher's Note: This edition from 2017 is outdated and is not compatible with TensorFlow 2 or any of the most recent updates to Python libraries. A new third edition, updated for 2020 and featuring TensorFlow 2 and the latest in scikit-learn, reinforcement learning, and GANs, has now been published. Machine learning is eating the software world, and now deep learning is extending machine learning. Understand and work at the cutting edge of machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning with this second edition of Sebastian Raschka’s bestselling book, Python Machine Learning. Using Python's open source libraries, this book offers the practical knowledge and techniques you need to create and contribute to machine learning, deep learning, and modern data analysis. Fully extended and modernized, Python Machine Learning Second Edition now includes the popular TensorFlow 1.x deep learning library. The scikit-learn code has also been fully updated to v0.18.1 to include improvements and additions to this versatile machine learning library. Sebastian Raschka and Vahid Mirjalili’s unique insight and expertise introduce you to machine learning and deep learning algorithms from scratch, and show you how to apply them to practical industry challenges using realistic and interesting examples. By the end of the book, you’ll be ready to meet the new data analysis opportunities. If you’ve read the first edition of this book, you’ll be delighted to find a balance of classical ideas and modern insights into machine learning. Every chapter has been critically updated, and there are new chapters on key technologies. You’ll be able to learn and work with TensorFlow 1.x more deeply than ever before, and get essential coverage of the Keras neural network library, along with updates to scikit-learn 0.18.1.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
17
Index

Dealing with missing data


It is not uncommon in real-world applications for our samples to be missing one or more values for various reasons. There could have been an error in the data collection process, certain measurements are not applicable, or particular fields could have been simply left blank in a survey, for example. We typically see missing values as the blank spaces in our data table or as placeholder strings such as NaN, which stands for not a number, or NULL (a commonly used indicator of unknown values in relational databases).

Unfortunately, most computational tools are unable to handle such missing values, or produce unpredictable results if we simply ignore them. Therefore, it is crucial that we take care of those missing values before we proceed with further analyses. In this section, we will work through several practical techniques for dealing with missing values by removing entries from our dataset or imputing missing values from other samples and features.

Identifying missing...