# Greatest Hits

604k 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 ...
1.0m views

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

What is the difference between discrete data and continuous data?
1.1m 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 ...
734k 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 ...
497k 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 ...
621k 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 ...
522k 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?
178k 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 ...
376k 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?
313k 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 ...
280k 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 ...
342k 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 ...
293k 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 ...
238k 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 ...
473k 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 ...
358k 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.
162k views

### What is your favorite “data analysis” cartoon?

This is one of my favorites: One entry per answer. (This is in the vein of the Stack Overflow question What’s your favorite “programmer” cartoon?.) P.S. Do not hotlink the cartoon without the site's ...
213k views

### Statistics Jokes

Well, we've got favourite statistics quotes. What about statistics jokes?
131k views

475k 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 ...
171k 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 ...
484k 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 ...
328k 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?
271k 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? ...
196k views

### What is the difference between data mining, statistics, machine learning and AI?

What is the difference between data mining, statistics, machine learning and AI? Would it be accurate to say that they are 4 fields attempting to solve very similar problems but with different ...
125k 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 ...
254k 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 ...
120k 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 ...
168k views

### How would you explain Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to a layperson?

Maybe the concept, why it's used, and an example.
213k 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 ...
267k views

### What's the difference between correlation and simple linear regression?

In particular, I am referring to the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.
262k views

### What is the difference between linear regression and logistic regression?

What is the difference between linear regression and logistic regression? When would you use each?
210k 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 ...
92k 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 ...
174k views

### Help me understand Bayesian prior and posterior distributions

In a group of students, there are 2 out of 18 that are left-handed. Find the posterior distribution of left-handed students in the population assuming uninformative prior. Summarize the results. ...
213k views

### How would you explain the difference between correlation and covariance?

Following up on this question, How would you explain covariance to someone who understands only the mean?, which addresses the issue of explaining covariance to a lay person, brought up a similar ...
188k 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 ...
266k 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 ...
104k 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 ...
110k views

303k views

### Is there a minimum sample size required for the t-test to be valid?

I'm currently working on a quasi-experimental research paper. I only have a sample size of 15 due to low population within the chosen area and that only 15 fit my criteria. Is 15 the minimum sample ...
206k views

### How does the correlation coefficient differ from regression slope?

I would have expected the correlation coefficient to be the same as a regression slope (beta), however having just compared the two, they are different. How do they differ - what different information ...