Book Image

Training Systems using Python Statistical Modeling

By : Curtis Miller
Book Image

Training Systems using Python Statistical Modeling

By: Curtis Miller

Overview of this book

Python's ease-of-use and multi-purpose nature has made it one of the most popular tools for data scientists and machine learning developers. Its rich libraries are widely used for data analysis, and more importantly, for building state-of-the-art predictive models. This book is designed to guide you through using these libraries to implement effective statistical models for predictive analytics. You’ll start by delving into classical statistical analysis, where you will learn to compute descriptive statistics using pandas. You will focus on supervised learning, which will help you explore the principles of machine learning and train different machine learning models from scratch. Next, you will work with binary prediction models, such as data classification using k-nearest neighbors, decision trees, and random forests. The book will also cover algorithms for regression analysis, such as ridge and lasso regression, and their implementation in Python. In later chapters, you will learn how neural networks can be trained and deployed for more accurate predictions, and understand which Python libraries can be used to implement them. By the end of this book, you will have the knowledge you need to design, build, and deploy enterprise-grade statistical models for machine learning using Python and its rich ecosystem of libraries for predictive analytics.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Neural networks

This section focuses on the class of classifiers and regression algorithms known as neural networks. In this section, we will cover the theory behind neural networks. We will also look at one specific type of neural networkthat is, the MLP.

Neural networks are inspired by a model of how the brain works. In this model, a neuron is connected with other neurons in the brain; if the signals surpass a threshold, then the neuron is induced to activate. This is better illustrated in the following diagram:

The neuron that is activated is then passed to other neurons, spreading messages. Neural networks in machine learning emulate this process; neural networks are characterized by how information is transmitted through the network.

The structure of a neural network

...