Book Image

Applied Supervised Learning with R

By : Karthik Ramasubramanian, Jojo Moolayil
Book Image

Applied Supervised Learning with R

By: Karthik Ramasubramanian, Jojo Moolayil

Overview of this book

R provides excellent visualization features that are essential for exploring data before using it in automated learning. Applied Supervised Learning with R helps you cover the complete process of employing R to develop applications using supervised machine learning algorithms for your business needs. The book starts by helping you develop your analytical thinking to create a problem statement using business inputs and domain research. You will then learn different evaluation metrics that compare various algorithms, and later progress to using these metrics to select the best algorithm for your problem. After finalizing the algorithm you want to use, you will study the hyperparameter optimization technique to fine-tune your set of optimal parameters. The book demonstrates how you can add different regularization terms to avoid overfitting your model. By the end of this book, you will have gained the advanced skills you need for modeling a supervised machine learning algorithm that precisely fulfills your business needs.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Applied Supervised Learning with R
Preface

Underfitting and Overfitting


In the previous scenario, where we have a high bias, we denote a phenomenon called underfitting in machine learning models. Similarly, when we have high variance, we denote a phenomenon called overfitting in machine learning models.

The following visual demonstrates the idea of overfitting, underfitting, and ideal balance for a regression model. We can see high bias resulting in an oversimplified model (that is, underfitting); high variance resulting in overcomplicated models (that is, overfitting); and lastly, striking the right balance between bias and variance:

Figure 7.2: Visual demonstration of overfitting, underfitting, and ideal balance

To study bias and variance in machine learning models more effectively, we have cross-validation techniques. These techniques help us understand the model performance more intuitively.