Tag Archives: machine learning

Using Regression for Prediction in R

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In the last post about R, we looked at plotting information to make predictions. We will now look at an example of making predictions using regression.

We will use the same data as last time with the help of the ‘caret’ package as well. The code below sets up the seed and the training and testing set we need.

> library(caret); library(ISLR); library(ggplot2)
> data("College");set.seed(1)
> PracticeSet<-createDataPartition(y=College$Grad.Rate,  +                                  p=0.5, list=FALSE) > TrainingSet<-College[PracticeSet, ]; TestingSet<- +         College[-PracticeSet, ] > head(TrainingSet)

The code above should look familiar from the previous post.

Make the Scatterplot

We will now create the scatterplot showing the relationship between “S.F. Ratio” and “Grad.Rate” with the code below and the scatterplot.

> plot(TrainingSet$S.F.Ratio, TrainingSet$Grad.Rate, pch=5, col="green", 
xlab="Student Faculty Ratio", ylab="Graduation Rate")

Rplot10

Here is what we did

  1. We used the ‘plot’ function to make this scatterplot. The x variable was ‘S.F.Ratio’ of the ‘TrainingSet’ the y variable was ‘Grad.Rate’.
  2. We picked the type of dot to use using the ‘pch’ argument and choosing ’19’
  3. Next, we chose a color and labeled each axis

Fitting the Model

We will now develop the linear model. This model will help us to predict future models. Furthermore, we will compare the model of the Training Set with the Test Set. Below is the code for developing the model.

> TrainingModel<-lm(Grad.Rate~S.F.Ratio, data=TrainingSet)
> summary(TrainingModel)

How to interpret this information was presented in a previous post. However, to summarize, we can say that when the student to faculty ratio increases one the graduation rate decreases 1.29. In other words, an increase in the student to faculty ratio leads to decrease in the graduation rate.

Adding the Regression Line to the Plot

Below is the code for adding the regression line followed by the scatterplot

> plot(TrainingSet$S.F.Ratio, TrainingSet$Grad.Rate, pch=19, col="green", xlab="Student Faculty Ratio", ylab="Graduation Rate")
> lines(TrainingSet$S.F.Ratio, TrainingModel$fitted, lwd=3)

Rplot01

Predicting New Values

With our model complete we can now predict values. For our example, we will only predict one value. We want to know what the graduation rate would be if we have a student to faculty ratio of 33. Below is the code for this with the answer

> newdata<-data.frame(S.F.Ratio=33)
> predict(TrainingModel, newdata)
      1 
40.6811

Here is what we did

  1. We made a variable called ‘newdata’ and stored a data frame in it with a variable called ‘S.F.Ratio’ with a value of 33. This is x value
  2. Next, we used the ‘predict’ function from the ‘caret’ package to determine what the graduation rate would be if the student to faculty ratio is 33. To do this we told caret to use the ‘TrainingModel’ we developed using regression and to run this model with the information in the ‘newdata’ dataframe
  3. The answer was 40.68. This means that if the student to faculty ratio is 33 at a university then the graduation rate would be about 41%.

Testing the Model

We will now test the model we made with the training set with the testing set. First, we will make a visual of both models by using the “plot” function. Below is the code follow by the plots.

par(mfrow=c(1,2))
plot(TrainingSet$S.F.Ratio,
TrainingSet$Grad.Rate, pch=19, col=’green’,  xlab=”Student Faculty Ratio”, ylab=’Graduation Rate’)
lines(TrainingSet$S.F.Ratio,  predict(TrainingModel), lwd=3)
plot(TestingSet$S.F.Ratio,  TestingSet$Grad.Rate, pch=19, col=’purple’,
xlab=”Student Faculty Ratio”, ylab=’Graduation Rate’)
lines(TestingSet$S.F.Ratio,  predict(TrainingModel, newdata = TestingSet),lwd=3)

Rplot02.jpeg

In the code, all that is new is the “par” function which allows us to see to plots at the same time. We also used the ‘predict’ function to set the plots. As you can see, the two plots are somewhat differ based on a visual inspection. To determine how much so, we need to calculate the error. This is done through computing the root mean square error as shown below.

> sqrt(sum((TrainingModel$fitted-TrainingSet$Grad.Rate)^2))
[1] 328.9992
> sqrt(sum((predict(TrainingModel, newdata=TestingSet)-TestingSet$Grad.Rate)^2))
[1] 315.0409

The main take away from this complicated calculation is the number 328.9992 and 315.0409. These numbers tell you the amount of error in the training model and testing model. The lower the number the better the model. Since the error number in the testing set is lower than the training set we know that our model actually improves when using the testing set. This means that our model is beneficial in assessing graduation rates. If there were problems we may consider using other variables in the model.

Conclusion

This post shared ways to develop a regression model for the purpose of prediction and for model testing.

Predicting with Caret

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In this post, we will explore the use of the caret package for developing algorithms for use in machine learning. The caret package is particularly useful for processing data before the actual analysis of the algorithm.

When developing algorithms is common practice to divide the data into a training a testing subsamples. The training subsample is what is used to develop the algorithm while the testing sample is used to assess the predictive power of the algorithm. There are many different ways to divide a sample into a testing and training set and one of the main benefits of the “caret” package is in dividing the sample.

In the example we will use, we will return to the “kearnlab” example and this develop an algorithm after sub-setting the sample to have a training data set and a testing data set.

First, you need to download the ‘caret’ and ‘kearnlab’ package if you have not done so. After that below is the code for subsetting the ‘spam’ data from the ‘kearnlab’ package.

inTrain<- createDataPartition(y=spam$type, p=0.75, 
list=FALSE)
training<-spam[inTrain,]
testing<-spam[-inTrain,] 
dim(training)

Here is what we did

  1. We created the variable ‘inTrain’
  2. In the variable ‘inTrain’ we told R to make a partition in the data use the ‘createDataPartition’ function. I the parenthesis we told r to look at the dataset ‘spam’ and to examine the variable ‘type’. Then we told are to pull 75% of the data in ‘type’ and copy it to the ‘inTrain’ variable we created. List = False tells R not to make a list. If you look closely, you will see that the variable ‘type’ is being set as the y variable in the ‘inTrain’ data set. This means that all the other variables in the data set will be used as predictors. Also, remember that the ‘type’ variable has two outcomes “spam” or “nonspam”
  3. Next, we created the variable ‘training’ which is the dataset we will use for developing our algorithm. To make this we take the original ‘spam’ data and subset the ‘inTrain’ partition. Now all the data that is in the ‘inTrain’ partition is now in the ‘training’ variable.
  4. Finally, we create the ‘testing’ variable which will be used for testing the algorithm. To make this variable, we tell R to take everything that was not assigned to the ‘inTrain’ variable and put it into the ‘testing’ variable. This is done through the use of a negative sign
  5. The ‘dim’ function just tells us how many rows and columns we have as shown below.
[1] 3451   58

As you can see, we have 3451 rows and 58 columns. Rows are for different observations and columns are for the variables in the data set.

Now to make the model. We are going to bootstrap our sample. Bootstrapping involves random sampling from the sample with replacement in order to assess the stability of the results. Below is the code for the bootstrap and model development followed by an explanation.

set.seed(32343)
SpamModel<-train(type ~., data=training, method="glm")
SpamModel

Here is what we did,

  1. Whenever you bootstrap, it is wise to set the seed. This allows you to reproduce the same results each time. For us, we set the seed to 32343
  2. Next, we developed the actual model. We gave the model the name “SpamModel” we used the ‘train’ function. Inside the parenthesis, we tell r to set “type” as the y variable and then use ~. which is a shorthand for using all other variables in the model as predictor variables. Then we set the data to the ‘training’ data set and indicate that the method is ‘glm’ which means generalized linear model.
  3. The output for the analysis is available at the link SpamModel

There is a lot of information but the most important information for us is the accuracy of the model which is 91.3%. The kappa stat tells us what the expected accuracy of the model is which is 81.7%. This means that our model is a little bit better than the expected accuracy.

For our final trick, we will develop a confusion matrix to assess the accuracy of our model using the ‘testing’ sample we made earlier. Below is the code

SpamPredict<-predict(SpamModel, newdata=testing)
confusionMatrix(SpamPredict, testing$type)

Here is what we did,

  1. We made a variable called ‘SpamPredict’. We use the function ‘predict’ using the ‘SpamModel’ with the new data called ‘testing’.
  2. Next, we make matrix using the ‘confusionMatrix’ function using the new model ‘SpamPredict’ based on the ‘testing’ data on the ‘type’ variable. Below is the output

Reference

  1. Prediction nonspam spam
   nonspam     657   35
   spam         40  418
                                          
               Accuracy : 0.9348          
                 95% CI : (0.9189, 0.9484)
    No Information Rate : 0.6061          
    P-Value [Acc > NIR] : <2e-16          
                                          
                  Kappa : 0.8637          
 Mcnemar's Test P-Value : 0.6442          
                                          
            Sensitivity : 0.9426          
            Specificity : 0.9227          
         Pos Pred Value : 0.9494          
         Neg Pred Value : 0.9127          
             Prevalence : 0.6061          
         Detection Rate : 0.5713          
   Detection Prevalence : 0.6017          
      Balanced Accuracy : 0.9327          
                                          
       'Positive' Class : nonspam

    The accuracy of the model actually improved to 93% on the test data. The other values such as sensitivity and specificity have to do with such things as looking at correct classifications divided by false negatives and other technical matters. As you can see, machine learning is a somewhat complex experience

Simple Prediction

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Prediction is one of the key concepts of machine learning. Machine learning is a field of study that is focused on the development of algorithms that can be used to make predictions.

Anyone who has shopped online at has experienced machine learning. When you make a purchase at an online store, the website will recommend additional purchases for you to make. Often these recommendations are based on whatever you have purchased or whatever you click on while at the site.

There are two common forms of machine learning, unsupervised and supervised learning. Unsupervised learning involves using data that is not cleaned and labeled and attempts are made to find patterns within the data. Since the data is not labeled, there is no indication of what is right or wrong

Supervised machine learning is using cleaned and properly labeled data. Since the data is labeled there is some form of indication whether the model that is developed is accurate or not. If the is incorrect then you need to make adjustments to it. In other words, the model learns based on its ability to accurately predict results. However, it is up to the human to make adjustments to the model in order to improve the accuracy of it.

In this post, we will look at using R for supervised machine learning. The definition presented so far will make more sense with an example.

The Example

We are going to make a simple prediction about whether emails are spam or not using data from kern lab.

The first thing that you need to do is to install and load the “kernlab” package using the following code

install.packages("kernlab")
library(kernlab)

If you use the “View” function to examine the data you will see that there are several columns. Each column tells you the frequency of a word that kernlab found in a collection of emails. We are going to use the word/variable “money” to predict whether an email is spam or not. First, we need to plot the density of the use of the word “money” when the email was not coded as spam. Below is the code for this.

plot(density(spam$money[spam$type=="nonspam"]),
 col='blue',main="", xlab="Frequency of 'money'")

This is an advance R post so I am assuming you can read the code. The plot should look like the following.

Rplot10

As you can see, money is not used to frequently in emails that are not spam in this dataset. However, you really cannot say this unless you compare the times ‘money’ is labeled nonspam to the times that it is labeled spam. To learn this we need to add a second line that explains to us when the word ‘money’ is used and classified as spam. The code for this is below with the prior code included.

plot(density(spam$money[spam$type=="nonspam"]),
 col='blue',main="", xlab="Frequency of 'money'")
lines(density(spam$money[spam$type=="spam"]), col="red")

Your new plot should look like the following

Rplot10

If you look closely at the plot doing a visual inspection, where there is a separation between the blue line for nonspam and the red line for spam is the cutoff point for whether an email is spam or not. In other words, everything inside the arc is labeled correctly while the information outside the arc is not.

The next code and graph show that this cutoff point is around 0.1. This means that any email that has on average more than 0.1 frequency of the word ‘money’ is spam. Below is the code and the graph with the cutoff point indicated by a black line.

plot(density(spam$money[spam$type=="nonspam"]),
 col='blue',main="", xlab="Frequency of 'money'")
lines(density(spam$money[spam$type=="spam"]), col="red")
abline(v=0.1, col="black", lw= 3)

Rplot10.jpeg Now we need to calculate the accuracy of the use of the word ‘money’ to predict spam. For our current example, we will simply use in “ifelse” function. If the frequency is greater than 0.1.

We then need to make a table to see the results. The code for the “ifelse” function and the table are below followed by the table.

predict<-ifelse(spam$money > 0.1, "spam","nonspam")
table(predict, spam$type)/length(spam$type)
predict       nonspam        spam
  nonspam 0.596392089 0.266898500
  spam    0.009563138 0.127146273

Based on the table that I am assuming you can read, our model accurately calculates that an email is spam about 71% (0.59 + 0.12) of the time based on the frequency of the word ‘money’ being greater than 0.1.

Of course, for this to be true machine learning we would repeat this process by trying to improve the accuracy of the prediction. However, this is an adequate introduction to this topic.