ML
Mauricio Vasquez
October 19, 2016
Machine Learning - What is it all about?
It is surprising that machine learning has been out there in the field and in the realm of scientific research and developement for quite a while. In 1959, Arthur Samuel, elaborated one of hte first known definitions of machine learning. Machine learning has been intrinsically associated with computers and their fast evolution. It is considered itself a subfield within the area of computer sicence. According to A. Samuel, machine learning “gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed” (Arthur Samuel, 1959)
Machine Learning basically consists of all the existing (and potentially new) techniques, tecnologies, methodologies, models, systems used to understand and interpret data and information, as well as the consequent development of algorithms and mathematical models to predict and forecast new situations.
In this documenent, to demosnrate the practical steps of amchine learning we will use the “SPAM” email data set. It is a data set collected at Hewlett-Packard Labs, that classifies 4601 e-mails as spam or non-spam. The data set contains 2788 e-mails classified as “nonspam” and 1813 classified as “spam”. In addition to this class label there are 57 variables indicating the frequency of certain words and characters in the e-mail.
The first 48 variables contain the frequency of the variable name (e.g., business) in the e-mail. If the variable name starts with num (e.g., num650) the it indicates the frequency of the corresponding number (e.g., 650). The variables 49-54 indicate the frequency of the characters ‘;’, ‘(’, ‘[’, ‘!’, ‘$’, and ‘“SLASH”’. The variables 55-57 contain the average, longest and total run-length of capital letters. Variable 58 indicates the type of the mail and is either “nonspam” or “spam”, i.e. unsolicited commercial e-mail.
library(kernlab)
data("spam")
str(spam)## 'data.frame': 4601 obs. of 58 variables:
## $ make : num 0 0.21 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0.15 0.06 ...
## $ address : num 0.64 0.28 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.12 ...
## $ all : num 0.64 0.5 0.71 0 0 0 0 0 0.46 0.77 ...
## $ num3d : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ our : num 0.32 0.14 1.23 0.63 0.63 1.85 1.92 1.88 0.61 0.19 ...
## $ over : num 0 0.28 0.19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.32 ...
## $ remove : num 0 0.21 0.19 0.31 0.31 0 0 0 0.3 0.38 ...
## $ internet : num 0 0.07 0.12 0.63 0.63 1.85 0 1.88 0 0 ...
## $ order : num 0 0 0.64 0.31 0.31 0 0 0 0.92 0.06 ...
## $ mail : num 0 0.94 0.25 0.63 0.63 0 0.64 0 0.76 0 ...
## $ receive : num 0 0.21 0.38 0.31 0.31 0 0.96 0 0.76 0 ...
## $ will : num 0.64 0.79 0.45 0.31 0.31 0 1.28 0 0.92 0.64 ...
## $ people : num 0 0.65 0.12 0.31 0.31 0 0 0 0 0.25 ...
## $ report : num 0 0.21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ addresses : num 0 0.14 1.75 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.12 ...
## $ free : num 0.32 0.14 0.06 0.31 0.31 0 0.96 0 0 0 ...
## $ business : num 0 0.07 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ email : num 1.29 0.28 1.03 0 0 0 0.32 0 0.15 0.12 ...
## $ you : num 1.93 3.47 1.36 3.18 3.18 0 3.85 0 1.23 1.67 ...
## $ credit : num 0 0 0.32 0 0 0 0 0 3.53 0.06 ...
## $ your : num 0.96 1.59 0.51 0.31 0.31 0 0.64 0 2 0.71 ...
## $ font : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ num000 : num 0 0.43 1.16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.19 ...
## $ money : num 0 0.43 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0.15 0 ...
## $ hp : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ hpl : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ george : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ num650 : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ lab : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ labs : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ telnet : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ num857 : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ data : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.15 0 ...
## $ num415 : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ num85 : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ technology : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ num1999 : num 0 0.07 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ parts : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ pm : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ direct : num 0 0 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ cs : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ meeting : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ original : num 0 0 0.12 0 0 0 0 0 0.3 0 ...
## $ project : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.06 ...
## $ re : num 0 0 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ edu : num 0 0 0.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ table : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ conference : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ charSemicolon : num 0 0 0.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.04 ...
## $ charRoundbracket : num 0 0.132 0.143 0.137 0.135 0.223 0.054 0.206 0.271 0.03 ...
## $ charSquarebracket: num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ charExclamation : num 0.778 0.372 0.276 0.137 0.135 0 0.164 0 0.181 0.244 ...
## $ charDollar : num 0 0.18 0.184 0 0 0 0.054 0 0.203 0.081 ...
## $ charHash : num 0 0.048 0.01 0 0 0 0 0 0.022 0 ...
## $ capitalAve : num 3.76 5.11 9.82 3.54 3.54 ...
## $ capitalLong : num 61 101 485 40 40 15 4 11 445 43 ...
## $ capitalTotal : num 278 1028 2259 191 191 ...
## $ type : Factor w/ 2 levels "nonspam","spam": 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...The Process of Machine Learning
Like any other scietific approach, machine learning is better accomplished when approached as a scientific process, using scientificmethods and standard practices. One advantage of using a proven scientific methodology is that we can also produce reprodutible research and results can be achieved. It allows for efficiencies, consitentency of results and will help develop best practices as well as reliability. The basic steps for machine learnig can be defined as
Define the objective or purpose of the project. What do we want to accomplish. Ask the right questions and define and narrow the objectives. Define the objetives in a quantifible way.
Data definition, collection, preparation, and exploratory data Analysis. The real stuff happens when we have the data. But which data? What kind of attributes? how are they measured? how do we collect or gather the data? Does data need any transformation, cleansing, organization? What an EDA tells us about the data, the attributes, the conections among attributes, which is the class variable or variables, the characteristics of each attribute (is numeric, categorical, does it have any special distribution (binomial, categorical, continuous), is it a redundant attribute?
Model preparation, Model selection, testing and evaluation.
Note that the echo = FALSE parameter was added to the code chunk to prevent printing of the R code that generated the plot.