Question 2


For parts (a) through (c), indicate which of i. through iv. is correct. Justify your answer.

(a) The lasso, relative to least squares, is:

i. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
ii. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.
iii. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
iv. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.

A: iii is the correct answer. Lasso’s solution can have a reduction in variance at the expense of small increase in bias while least squares estimates have high variance. Lasso can shrink coefficient estimates, removing non-essential variables for less variance and higher bias.

(b) Repeat (a) for ridge regression relative to least squares.
i. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
ii. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.
iii. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
iv. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.

A: iii is the correct answer. Like Lasso, ridge can shrink the coefficient estimates, decreasing variance with higher bias. Ridge is less flexible than the least squares.

(c) Repeat (a) for non-linear methods relative to least squares.
i. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
ii. More flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.
iii. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in bias is less than its decrease in variance.
iv. Less flexible and hence will give improved prediction accuracy when its increase in variance is less than its decrease in bias.

*A: ii is the correct answer. Non-linear models are more flexible and have less bias than least squares.

Question 9


In this exercise, we will predict the number of applications received using the other variables in the College data set.

(a) Split the data set into a training set and a test set.

library(ISLR)
## Warning: package 'ISLR' was built under R version 3.6.3
attach(College)
x=model.matrix(Apps~.,College)[,-1]
y=College$Apps
set.seed(10)
train=sample(1:nrow(x), nrow(x)/2)
test=(-train)
College.train = College[train, ]
College.test = College[test, ]
y.test=y[test]


(b) Fit a linear model using least squares on the training set, and report the test error obtained.

pls.fit<-lm(Apps~., data=College, subset=train)
summary(pls.fit)
## 
## Call:
## lm(formula = Apps ~ ., data = College, subset = train)
## 
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max 
## -5139.5  -473.3   -21.1   353.2  7402.7 
## 
## Coefficients:
##               Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
## (Intercept) -629.36179  639.35741  -0.984 0.325579    
## PrivateYes  -647.56836  192.17056  -3.370 0.000832 ***
## Accept         1.68912    0.05038  33.530  < 2e-16 ***
## Enroll        -1.02383    0.27721  -3.693 0.000255 ***
## Top10perc     48.19124    8.10714   5.944 6.42e-09 ***
## Top25perc    -10.51538    6.44952  -1.630 0.103865    
## F.Undergrad    0.01992    0.05364   0.371 0.710574    
## P.Undergrad    0.04213    0.05348   0.788 0.431373    
## Outstate      -0.09489    0.02674  -3.549 0.000436 ***
## Room.Board     0.14549    0.07243   2.009 0.045277 *  
## Books          0.06660    0.31115   0.214 0.830623    
## Personal       0.05663    0.09453   0.599 0.549475    
## PhD          -10.11489    7.11588  -1.421 0.156027    
## Terminal      -2.29300    8.03546  -0.285 0.775528    
## S.F.Ratio     22.07117   18.70991   1.180 0.238897    
## perc.alumni    2.08121    6.00673   0.346 0.729179    
## Expend         0.07654    0.01672   4.577 6.45e-06 ***
## Grad.Rate      9.99706    4.49821   2.222 0.026857 *  
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
## 
## Residual standard error: 1092 on 370 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.9395, Adjusted R-squared:  0.9367 
## F-statistic:   338 on 17 and 370 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16
pred.app<-predict(pls.fit, College.test)
test.error<-mean((College.test$Apps-pred.app)^2)
test.error
## [1] 1020100


MSE for linear model using the least squares is 1,020,100
(c) Fit a ridge regression model on the training set, with λ chosen by cross-validation. Report the test error obtained.

library(glmnet)
## Warning: package 'glmnet' was built under R version 3.6.3
## Loading required package: Matrix
## Loaded glmnet 4.0-2
grid=10^seq(10,-2,length=100)
ridge.mod=glmnet(x[train,],y[train],alpha=0,lambda=grid)
summary(ridge.mod)
##           Length Class     Mode   
## a0         100   -none-    numeric
## beta      1700   dgCMatrix S4     
## df         100   -none-    numeric
## dim          2   -none-    numeric
## lambda     100   -none-    numeric
## dev.ratio  100   -none-    numeric
## nulldev      1   -none-    numeric
## npasses      1   -none-    numeric
## jerr         1   -none-    numeric
## offset       1   -none-    logical
## call         5   -none-    call   
## nobs         1   -none-    numeric
cv.college.out=cv.glmnet(x[train,],y[train] ,alpha=0)
bestlam=cv.college.out$lambda.min
bestlam
## [1] 411.3927
ridge.pred=predict(ridge.mod,s=bestlam,newx=x[test,])
mean((ridge.pred-y.test)^2)
## [1] 985020.1


MSE for the ridge model is 985,020.1

(d) Fit a lasso model on the training set, with λ chosen by crossvalidation. Report the test error obtained, along with the number of non-zero coefficient estimates.

lasso.mod=glmnet(x[train,],y[train],alpha=1,lambda=grid)
summary(lasso.mod)
##           Length Class     Mode   
## a0         100   -none-    numeric
## beta      1700   dgCMatrix S4     
## df         100   -none-    numeric
## dim          2   -none-    numeric
## lambda     100   -none-    numeric
## dev.ratio  100   -none-    numeric
## nulldev      1   -none-    numeric
## npasses      1   -none-    numeric
## jerr         1   -none-    numeric
## offset       1   -none-    logical
## call         5   -none-    call   
## nobs         1   -none-    numeric
cv.out=cv.glmnet(x[train,],y[train],alpha=1)
bestlam=cv.out$lambda.min
bestlam
## [1] 24.66235
lasso.pred=predict(lasso.mod,s=bestlam,newx=x[test,])
mean((lasso.pred-y.test)^2)
## [1] 1008145
out=glmnet(x,y,alpha=1,lambda = grid)
lasso.coef=predict(out,type="coefficients",s=bestlam)[1:18,]
lasso.coef[lasso.coef!=0]
##   (Intercept)    PrivateYes        Accept        Enroll     Top10perc 
## -6.324960e+02 -4.087012e+02  1.436837e+00 -1.410240e-01  3.143012e+01 
##     Top25perc   P.Undergrad      Outstate    Room.Board      Personal 
## -8.606525e-01  1.480293e-02 -5.342495e-02  1.205819e-01  4.379046e-05 
##           PhD      Terminal     S.F.Ratio   perc.alumni        Expend 
## -5.121245e+00 -3.371192e+00  2.717229e+00 -1.039648e+00  6.838161e-02 
##     Grad.Rate 
##  4.700317e+00

MSE for the lasso model is 1,008,145

(e) Fit a PCR model on the training set, with M chosen by crossvalidation. Report the test error obtained, along with the value of M selected by cross-validation.

library(pls)
## Warning: package 'pls' was built under R version 3.6.3
## 
## Attaching package: 'pls'
## The following object is masked from 'package:stats':
## 
##     loadings
pcr.college=pcr(Apps~., data=College.train,scale=TRUE,validation="CV")
summary(pcr.college)
## Data:    X dimension: 388 17 
##  Y dimension: 388 1
## Fit method: svdpc
## Number of components considered: 17
## 
## VALIDATION: RMSEP
## Cross-validated using 10 random segments.
##        (Intercept)  1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps
## CV            4347     4345     2371     2391     2104     1949     1898
## adjCV         4347     4345     2368     2396     2085     1939     1891
##        7 comps  8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps
## CV        1899     1880     1864      1861      1870      1873      1891
## adjCV     1893     1862     1857      1853      1862      1865      1885
##        14 comps  15 comps  16 comps  17 comps
## CV         1903      1727      1295      1260
## adjCV      1975      1669      1283      1249
## 
## TRAINING: % variance explained
##       1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps  7 comps
## X     32.6794    56.94    64.38    70.61    76.27    80.97    84.48
## Apps   0.9148    71.17    71.36    79.85    81.49    82.73    82.79
##       8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps  14 comps
## X       87.54    90.50     92.89     94.96     96.81     97.97     98.73
## Apps    83.70    83.86     84.08     84.11     84.11     84.16     84.28
##       15 comps  16 comps  17 comps
## X        99.39     99.86    100.00
## Apps     93.08     93.71     93.95
validationplot(pcr.college, val.type="MSEP")

pcr.pred=predict(pcr.college,x[test,],ncomp=10)
mean((pcr.pred-y.test)^2)
## [1] 1422699


Selected number of components was 10 due to its low CV and high variance explained.

(f) Fit a PLS model on the training set, with M chosen by crossvalidation. Report the test error obtained, along with the value of M selected by cross-validation.

pls.college=plsr(Apps~., data=College.train,scale=TRUE, validation="CV")
validationplot(pls.college, val.type="MSEP")

summary(pls.college)
## Data:    X dimension: 388 17 
##  Y dimension: 388 1
## Fit method: kernelpls
## Number of components considered: 17
## 
## VALIDATION: RMSEP
## Cross-validated using 10 random segments.
##        (Intercept)  1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps
## CV            4347     2178     1872     1734     1615     1453     1359
## adjCV         4347     2171     1867     1726     1586     1427     1341
##        7 comps  8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps
## CV        1347     1340     1329      1317      1310      1305      1305
## adjCV     1330     1324     1314      1302      1296      1291      1291
##        14 comps  15 comps  16 comps  17 comps
## CV         1305      1307      1307      1307
## adjCV      1291      1292      1293      1293
## 
## TRAINING: % variance explained
##       1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps  7 comps
## X       24.27    38.72    62.64    65.26    69.01    73.96    78.86
## Apps    76.96    84.31    86.80    91.48    93.37    93.75    93.81
##       8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps  14 comps
## X       82.18    85.35     87.42     89.18     91.41     92.70     94.58
## Apps    93.84    93.88     93.91     93.93     93.94     93.95     93.95
##       15 comps  16 comps  17 comps
## X        97.16     98.15    100.00
## Apps     93.95     93.95     93.95
pls.pred=predict(pls.college,x[test,],ncomp=9)
mean((pls.pred-y.test)^2)
## [1] 1049868

The PLS model resulted with 11 componenets as this had the lowest CV at 1285 with high (89.18) variance explained.

(g) Comment on the results obtained. How accurately can we predict the number of college applications received? Is there much difference among the test errors resulting from these five approaches?

test.avg = mean(College.test[, "Apps"])
lm.test.r2 = 1 - mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - pred.app)^2) /mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - test.avg)^2)
ridge.test.r2 = 1 - mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - ridge.pred)^2) /mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - test.avg)^2)
lasso.test.r2 = 1 - mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - lasso.pred)^2) /mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - test.avg)^2)
pcr.test.r2 = 1 - mean((pcr.pred-y.test)^2) /mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - test.avg)^2)
pls.test.r2 = 1 - mean((pls.pred-y.test)^2) /mean((College.test[, "Apps"] - test.avg)^2)
barplot(c(lm.test.r2, ridge.test.r2, lasso.test.r2, pcr.test.r2, pls.test.r2), names.arg=c("OLS", "Ridge", "Lasso", "PCR", "PLS"), main="Test R-squared")

detach(College)


Comparing the R-square of each model shows PCR has the lowest accuracy where others are very similar. Looking at just the MSE, ridge has the lowest MSE so this would be a good model.

Question 11


We will now try to predict per capita crime rate in the Boston data set.

(a) Try out some of the regression methods explored in this chapter, such as best subset selection, the lasso, ridge regression, and PCR. Present and discuss results for the approaches that you consider.

library(leaps)
## Warning: package 'leaps' was built under R version 3.6.3
library(MASS)
set.seed(1)
attach(Boston)
predict.regsubsets = function(object, newdata, id, ...) {
    form = as.formula(object$call[[2]])
    mat = model.matrix(form, newdata)
    coefi = coef(object, id = id)
    mat[, names(coefi)] %*% coefi
}

k = 10
p = ncol(Boston) - 1
folds = sample(rep(1:k, length = nrow(Boston)))
cv.errors = matrix(NA, k, p)
for (i in 1:k) {
    best.fit = regsubsets(crim ~ ., data = Boston[folds != i, ], nvmax = p)
    for (j in 1:p) {
        pred = predict(best.fit, Boston[folds == i, ], id = j)
        cv.errors[i, j] = mean((Boston$crim[folds == i] - pred)^2)
    }
}
mean.cv.errors <- apply(cv.errors, 2, mean)
plot(mean.cv.errors, type = "b", xlab = "Number of variables", ylab = "CV error")

which.min(mean.cv.errors)
## [1] 9
mean.cv.errors[which.min(mean.cv.errors)]
## [1] 42.81453
x = model.matrix(crim ~ . - 1, data = Boston)
y = Boston$crim
cv.lasso = cv.glmnet(x, y, type.measure = "mse")
plot(cv.lasso)

coef(cv.lasso)
## 14 x 1 sparse Matrix of class "dgCMatrix"
##                    1
## (Intercept) 2.176491
## zn          .       
## indus       .       
## chas        .       
## nox         .       
## rm          .       
## age         .       
## dis         .       
## rad         0.150484
## tax         .       
## ptratio     .       
## black       .       
## lstat       .       
## medv        .
sqrt(cv.lasso$cvm[cv.lasso$lambda == cv.lasso$lambda.1se])
## [1] 7.921353
x = model.matrix(crim ~ . - 1, data = Boston)
y = Boston$crim
cv.ridge = cv.glmnet(x, y, type.measure = "mse", alpha = 0)
plot(cv.ridge)

coef(cv.ridge)
## 14 x 1 sparse Matrix of class "dgCMatrix"
##                        1
## (Intercept)  1.523899548
## zn          -0.002949852
## indus        0.029276741
## chas        -0.166526006
## nox          1.874769661
## rm          -0.142852604
## age          0.006207995
## dis         -0.094547258
## rad          0.045932737
## tax          0.002086668
## ptratio      0.071258052
## black       -0.002605281
## lstat        0.035745604
## medv        -0.023480540
sqrt(cv.ridge$cvm[cv.ridge$lambda == cv.ridge$lambda.1se])
## [1] 7.669133
pcr.crime = pcr(crim ~ ., data = Boston, scale = TRUE, validation = "CV")
summary(pcr.crime)
## Data:    X dimension: 506 13 
##  Y dimension: 506 1
## Fit method: svdpc
## Number of components considered: 13
## 
## VALIDATION: RMSEP
## Cross-validated using 10 random segments.
##        (Intercept)  1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps
## CV            8.61    7.175    7.180    6.724    6.731    6.727    6.727
## adjCV         8.61    7.174    7.179    6.721    6.725    6.724    6.724
##        7 comps  8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps
## CV       6.722    6.614    6.618     6.607     6.598     6.553     6.488
## adjCV    6.718    6.609    6.613     6.602     6.592     6.546     6.481
## 
## TRAINING: % variance explained
##       1 comps  2 comps  3 comps  4 comps  5 comps  6 comps  7 comps
## X       47.70    60.36    69.67    76.45    82.99    88.00    91.14
## crim    30.69    30.87    39.27    39.61    39.61    39.86    40.14
##       8 comps  9 comps  10 comps  11 comps  12 comps  13 comps
## X       93.45    95.40     97.04     98.46     99.52     100.0
## crim    42.47    42.55     42.78     43.04     44.13      45.4


(b) Propose a model (or set of models) that seem to perform well on this data set, and justify your answer. Make sure that you are evaluating model performance using validation set error, crossvalidation, or some other reasonable alternative, as opposed to using training error.

Based on the MSE, the best subset selection model had the lowest cross-validation error with the MSE of 42.8.

(c) Does your chosen model involve all of the features in the data set? Why or why not?

The model chosen is the best subset selection model. This model has 9 predictors and the lowest MSE. By not including all 13 predictors, we have less variance. The goal of this model is to have low variances and low MSE while having good accuracy.