# Greatest Hits

831k views

### Making sense of principal component analysis, eigenvectors & eigenvalues

In today's pattern recognition class my professor talked about PCA, eigenvectors and eigenvalues. I understood the mathematics of it. If I'm asked to find eigenvalues etc. I'll do it correctly like ...
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1.1m views

### What is the difference between discrete data and continuous data?

What is the difference between discrete data and continuous data?
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1.5m views

### How to normalize data to 0-1 range?

I am lost in normalizing, could anyone guide me please. I have a minimum and maximum values, say -23.89 and 7.54990767, respectively. If I get a value of 5.6878 how can I scale this value on a scale ...
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939k views

### How to choose the number of hidden layers and nodes in a feedforward neural network?

Is there a standard and accepted method for selecting the number of layers, and the number of nodes in each layer, in a feed-forward neural network? I'm interested in automated ways of building neural ...
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862k views

### What's the difference between variance and standard deviation?

I was wondering what the difference between the variance and the standard deviation is. If you calculate the two values, it is clear that you get the standard deviation out of the variance, but what ...
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755k views

### What is the difference between fixed effect, random effect and mixed effect models?

In simple terms, how would you explain (perhaps with simple examples) the difference between fixed effect, random effect and mixed effect models?
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619k views

### What is the difference between test set and validation set?

I found this confusing when I use the neural network toolbox in Matlab. It divided the raw data set into three parts: training set validation set test set I notice in many training or learning ...
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558k views

### What is batch size in neural network?

I'm using Python Keras package for neural network. This is the link. Is batch_size equals to number of test samples? From ...
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395k views

### Relationship between SVD and PCA. How to use SVD to perform PCA?

Principal component analysis (PCA) is usually explained via an eigen-decomposition of the covariance matrix. However, it can also be performed via singular value decomposition (SVD) of the data matrix ...
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444k views

### What is the difference between "likelihood" and "probability"?

The wikipedia page claims that likelihood and probability are distinct concepts. In non-technical parlance, "likelihood" is usually a synonym for "probability," but in statistical usage there is a ...
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222k views

### What is the intuition behind beta distribution?

Disclaimer: I'm not a statistician but a software engineer. Most of my knowledge in statistics comes from self-education, thus I still have many gaps in understanding concepts that may seem trivial ...
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416k views

### What is the difference between a population and a sample?

What is the difference between a population and a sample? What common variables and statistics are used for each one, and how do those relate to each other?
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351k views

### Difference between logit and probit models

What is the difference between Logit and Probit model? I'm more interested here in knowing when to use logistic regression, and when to use Probit. If there is any literature which defines it using ...
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381k views

### Examples for teaching: Correlation does not mean causation

There is an old saying: "Correlation does not mean causation". When I teach, I tend to use the following standard examples to illustrate this point: number of storks and birth rate in Denmark; number ...
530k views

### What is the meaning of p values and t values in statistical tests?

After taking a statistics course and then trying to help fellow students, I noticed one subject that inspires much head-desk banging is interpreting the results of statistical hypothesis tests. It ...
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264k views

### What should I do when my neural network doesn't learn?

I'm training a neural network but the training loss doesn't decrease. How can I fix this? I'm not asking about overfitting or regularization. I'm asking about how to solve the problem where my ...
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557k views

### How to choose between Pearson and Spearman correlation?

How do I know when to choose between Spearman's $\rho$ and Pearson's $r$? My variable includes satisfaction and the scores were interpreted using the sum of the scores. However, these scores could ...
459k views

### In linear regression, when is it appropriate to use the log of an independent variable instead of the actual values?

Am I looking for a better behaved distribution for the independent variable in question, or to reduce the effect of outliers, or something else?
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247k views

### Statistics Jokes

Well, we've got favourite statistics quotes. What about statistics jokes?
435k views

### What does AUC stand for and what is it?

Searched high and low and have not been able to find out what AUC, as in related to prediction, stands for or means.
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344k views

### What is the influence of C in SVMs with linear kernel?

I am currently using an SVM with a linear kernel to classify my data. There is no error on the training set. I tried several values for the parameter $C$ ($10^{-5}, \dots, 10^2$). This did not ...
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415k views

### How to interpret a QQ plot

I am working with a small dataset (21 observations) and have the following normal QQ plot in R: Seeing that the plot does not support normality, what could I infer about the underlying distribution? ...
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144k views

176k views

### What is your favorite "data analysis" cartoon?

Data analysis cartoons can be useful for many reasons: they help communicate; they show that quantitative people have a sense of humor too; they can instigate good teaching moments; and they can help ...
207k views

### Intuitive explanation for dividing by $n-1$ when calculating standard deviation?

I was asked today in class why you divide the sum of square error by $n-1$ instead of with $n$, when calculating the standard deviation. I said I am not going to answer it in class (since I didn't ...
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178k views

### How to choose a predictive model after k-fold cross-validation?

I am wondering how to choose a predictive model after doing K-fold cross-validation. This may be awkwardly phrased, so let me explain in more detail: whenever I run K-fold cross-validation, I use K ...
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193k views

### What does the hidden layer in a neural network compute?

I'm sure many people will respond with links to 'let me google that for you', so I want to say that I've tried to figure this out so please forgive my lack of understanding here, but I cannot figure ...
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546k views

### How to interpret F- and p-value in ANOVA?

I am new to statistics and I currently deal with ANOVA. I carry out an ANOVA test in R using aov(dependendVar ~ IndependendVar) I get – among others – an F-value ...
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364k views

### What is the trade-off between batch size and number of iterations to train a neural network?

When training a neural network, what difference does it make to set: batch size to $a$ and number of iterations to $b$ vs. batch size to $c$ and number of iterations to $d$ where $ab = cd$? To ...
283k views

### Why square the difference instead of taking the absolute value in standard deviation?

In the definition of standard deviation, why do we have to square the difference from the mean to get the mean (E) and take the square root back at the end? Can't we just simply take the absolute ...
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328k views

### When (and why) should you take the log of a distribution (of numbers)?

Say I have some historical data e.g., past stock prices, airline ticket price fluctuations, past financial data of the company... Now someone (or some formula) comes along and says "let's take/use ...
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182k views

### Validation Error less than training error?

I found two questions here and here about this issue but there is no obvious answer or explanation yet.I enforce the same problem where the validation error is less than training error in my ...
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153k views

### How would you explain covariance to someone who understands only the mean?

...assuming that I'm able to augment their knowledge about variance in an intuitive fashion ( Understanding "variance" intuitively ) or by saying: It's the average distance of the data ...
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161k views

### How to understand the drawbacks of K-means

K-means is a widely used method in cluster analysis. In my understanding, this method does NOT require ANY assumptions, i.e., give me a dataset and a pre-specified number of clusters, k, and I just ...
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365k views

### When conducting multiple regression, when should you center your predictor variables & when should you standardize them?

In some literature, I have read that a regression with multiple explanatory variables, if in different units, needed to be standardized. (Standardizing consists in subtracting the mean and dividing ...
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258k views

### How to determine which distribution fits my data best?

I have a dataset and would like to figure out which distribution fits my data best. I used the fitdistr() function to estimate the necessary parameters to ...
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