Questions tagged [terminology]
Usage and meaning of specific technical words/concepts in statistics.
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Ratios and Probability
So I had this question in one of my classes and I wrote a super simple version of it and what I did. The only reason I'm asking is because either this question was super easy and I did it right, or I ...
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1answer
18 views
Naming of mathematical elements in GMM?
I'm struggling with the naming of different elements in GMM. There doesn't seem to be consistency in the literature. What do we even call the moment integrand $g$? I take a stab below with help from ...
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22 views
What is the relation between a loss function and an energy function?
A loss function is a function that measures the distance between the expected value and the actual value of a model (an example of a loss function is the cross entropy).
An energy function can be ...
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0answers
14 views
Variant of validation with singleton test sets
Is the following approach to model validation somehow reasonable? And is there a name for that approach? We have 110 data points, iid assumption holds and we want to compare two predictive models M1 ...
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2answers
1k views
Why is the marginal distribution/marginal probability described as “marginal”?
Marginal generally refers to something that's a small effect, something that's on the outside of a bigger system. It tends to diminish the importance of whatever is described as "marginal".
So how ...
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1answer
17 views
What is a factor in the context of Bayesian networks and inference?
I have come across the term "factor" in the context of Bayesian networks and inference (which I am not very familiar with). I've also heard of the expression "factor graph", which is an undirected ...
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1answer
40 views
the name of “Granger causality” is correct?
"Granger causality" is different from general and actual causation, as far as I see it's description.
It seems just the method to select explanatory variables.
Is the name of "causality" correct? ...
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1answer
16 views
Normalization when min(x)=0
I wish to know if there is a special name for normalization when $\min(x)=0$; so that the recipe
$z_i= [x_i−\min(x)]\ /\ [\max(x)−\min(x)]$
becomes
$z_i=x_i/\max(x)$.
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1answer
48 views
When knowledge of one event tells us nothing about another
I have an example;
Say I have two genes on two different locations on two different chromosomes.
P(A) = gene is from location 1
P(B) = gene is from location 2
Geneticists believe that knowledge of ...
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2answers
300 views
Is there a name for a moving average when it is done not across time but some other variable?
The moving average is defined as
A method of smoothing a time series to reduce the effects of random variation and reveal any underlying trend or seasonality.
(Oxford Dictionary of Statistics, ed. ...
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0answers
20 views
Density boundaries in a scatter plot
Let's say I have a scatter plot with (X, Y) real numbers.
Looking at the scatter plot I see a clear boundary, a curve or a line that I could sketch so that the density of points below the line is ...
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0answers
14 views
Name for aggregate and component cost functions?
I was really thrilled to find a clear answer to Word for loss function except weight regularization? But I'm in a situation where we have multiple costs functions in the objective function. We ...
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1answer
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Terminology: Is DTW considered to be machine learning or signal processing?
The DTW Wikipedia article puts this method in the category "Machine learning algorithms". On the other hand, the famous paper "Dynamic Programming Algorithm Optimization for
Spoken Word Recognition" ...
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1answer
15 views
Precision vs. Accuracy when talking about MSE
This is more of a semantic question. I'm working on translating a work from French to English related to statistics. In French, there is only 1 word as far as I can tell to describe both bias and ...
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1answer
84 views
What is a good name for a density function that does not relate to probability?
There is confusion between normalized functions whose area under the curve is one, i.e., density functions, and probability density functions that are not only density functions but that are measures ...
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1answer
32 views
Name for Standard Deviation over possible range (1-255)?
I have RGB brightness values over a possible range of 1-255. I am already computing Coefficient of Variation, but since my domain is strictly limited, I am interested in seeing a measure of how spread ...
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15 views
How to denote token length in statistics
I have a vocabulary (V) that includes terms. (e.g., V = ['data mining', 'data', 'machine', 'machine learning'])
I also have a ...
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0answers
23 views
In gradient boosting, what is the thing being boosted called?
Quoting from this answer that explains how to do boosting when a 'link' function is involved:
"Instead, we can re-express this as a function of $L_i$, (in this case also known as the log odds)
$$ \...
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0answers
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What is the difference between trend and drift?
I am analyzing a time series using the unit root test. I am stuck in that I do not understand the difference between trend and drift in the time series. Is it correct to say that trend is a feature of ...
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“Concept Class” in Machine Learning
I was reading this famous paper and encountered the term "concept class". There's one example given: union of balls in $n$-dimensional space. But one single example is not clear enough.
Can anyone ...
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1answer
23 views
Standard normal distribution vs Unit normal distribution
Are the Standard normal distribution and Unit normal distribution describe exactly the same? Or they describe different things?
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7 views
Term for modeling multivariate distribution by modeling iterative conditionals
Suppose I have a multivariate random variable $Y_1,...,Y_k$ for which I would like to model the joint distribution. To be clear, there is not a natural ordering to $Y_1, ..., Y_k$, e.g., they are not ...
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2answers
124 views
What is this “phenomenon” called?
Below is a histogram of some data, the bins are integers the other parameters are irrelevant.
As you can see there seems to be two separate but overlapping normal distributions for odd and even ...
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1answer
32 views
How can observations of random variables be IID, if they are not themselves random variables?
Suppose we perform some experiment which results in an outcome $\omega \in \Omega$. A random variable $X$ maps $\omega$ to a real number, and the (discrete) distribution $P(X)$ maps $X$ to $[0, 1]$. ...
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2answers
69 views
What does the term regression mean?
The term 'regression' means : 'deterioration', 'moving back', 'to return to an earlier or previous state'.
So when we speak about regression analysis, what does the word 'regression' mean?
Which & ...
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2answers
41 views
terminology of ordinary least squares
The definition from Wikipedia...
In statistics, ordinary least squares (OLS) is a type of linear least
squares method for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear
regression model. OLS ...
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23 views
Is it fair to consider rolling regression a form of bootstrapping?
The context is time series analysis. A few similarities between rolling regression and boostrapping jump out at me, in that both re-use observations to form new subsamples for estimation. However, ...
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1answer
35 views
Terminology: one-sided/two-sided hypothesis test
What is meant by a one-sided/two-sided hypothesis test? Is it just another term for a one-tailed/two-tailed hypothesis test?
And is a hypothesis test necessarily either one-tailed or two-tailed, or ...
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17 views
Help with terminology and/or method: find parameters that minimize cost function for each cluster of initial conditions?
This is a bit embarrassing but I can't even find the words to properly do a Google search.
I am doing simulations and I am trying to develop a better adaptation process. The process has seven ...
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4answers
2k views
Is a model fitted to data or is data fitted to a model?
Is there a conceptual or procedural difference between fitting a model to data and fitting data to model? An example of the first wording can be seen in https://courses.washington.edu/matlab1/...
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1answer
35 views
What do you call the coefficients other than the intercept in a linear regression
I'm trying to refer to the coefficients other than the intercept. Is there a word/jargon that refers to coefficients other than the intercept? (I'm currently calling them 'other coefficients', which ...
3
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2answers
61 views
How broad is the term statistical summary?
I am wondering how broad is the term "statistical summary". For example, can a set of inferential statistics, descriptive statistics, along with both parametric and non-parametric density estimation, ...
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0answers
20 views
How do you explain 'explained variance'?
What is the best definition of 'explained variance' from a teaching perspective?
I quite like this one:
"Explained variance (also called explained variation) is used to measure the discrepancy ...
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1answer
34 views
what does it mean to run a time series model in levels?
I have seen the phrases running a var in levels and running a var in difference very frequently, either on this site or elsewhere.
I understand running a var in difference basically means to ...
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What is the correct definition of Selectivity : TPR or TNR ? Since contradictory literature exists
The reason of my question is because contradictory articles exist. Talking about the confusion matrix's performance metrics, we can find:
English wikipedia pages mention that ...
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0answers
76 views
Term for two variables that are “too close for control”
Sometimes we are tempted to assess a relationship of X1 with Y while controlling for X2, but it would be a mistake, because X2 is not merely correlated with Y -- it is more closely associated than ...
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1answer
18 views
Sample space for 4 consecutive coin flips vs 4 coins flipped at once
I am trying to firm up my understanding of sample space. I am playing with the idea of two random processes, where one realization of each process is
(A): flip a coin 4 times, record the results
(B):...
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1answer
51 views
What's the term used when identical feature vectors map to different target variables?
Context: Fitting a Machine Learning Algorithm on a labeled dataset.
For a feature vector [a,b,c] and a labeled output/target variable, what's the term used when identical feature vectors map to two (...
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1answer
29 views
Type of normalization [duplicate]
Suppose you have some vector $[a_1, \ldots, a_n]$ where the terms are non-negative.
How do you call the normalization method where you divide each element by the sum (to get a probability vector)? i....
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2answers
67 views
About basic terminology: experiment, outcome, sample space, is my understanding correct?
Part 1
We could define
"tossing $1$ coin $1$ time" as an experiment $E_1$, with possible outcomes, aka, the sample space of which is $\{H,T\}$, this set has 2 elements;
"tossing $1$ coins $2$ ...
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Nomenclature of hierarchical clustering constellation plot/graph
What is the name for the process/method by which I select the branch that has that dot, circled in red, from within the hierarchical clustered model?
This is a constellation plot, made in JMP:
I am ...
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0answers
25 views
Terminology Confusion: Probability, Likelihood, AND?
currently I have a terminology issue to accurately write a text. I read up on the definitions on probability and likelihood. Given some continuous random variable(s) as far as I can infer, probability ...
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2answers
20 views
Describing the spread of outcomes from simulations
In general, what is the term to describe the 5th and 95th percentiles of outcomes coming from a simulation study?
Say we obtain a vector of outcomes y. In R we can ...
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0answers
91 views
Learning algorithm vs Model in Machine Learning [duplicate]
In ML, I learned that we have a model and a learning algorithm. The learning algorithm is used to train the model with training data, does that sound correct?
If the model is trained using linear ...
3
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1answer
37 views
Least Squares Estimator Vs Ordinary Least Squares Estimator
Is there any difference between the two terms "Least Squares Estimator" and "Ordinary Least Squares Estimator". For convenience, I'll refer to them as LS and OLS respectively. I have read various ...
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0answers
64 views
Terminology: “Central Limit Theorem” for Delta Method
This is a question about when is it appropriate to call an asymptotic normality statement, the "Central Limit Theorem" (CLT).
More specifically, suppose I have $X_1, X_2, \dots X_n$ iid from a ...
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0answers
29 views
What is the name for bins derived from Quantiles? [duplicate]
It's so easy to talk about "deciles" as if they were groups of observations that fall between the actual deciles, i.e., "any of the nine values that divide the sorted data into ten equal parts." But ...
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Is there a term to refer to a weighted mean that's weighted by a function of percentile (using a kernel)?
I came-up with a type of central tendency which is a weighted mean. The weighting is based on percentile, with values closer to the median having a higher weight. It's similar to the idea of a ...
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1answer
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Are “the probability of something being seen” and “the probability of someone seeing something” the same?
I'm puzzling over how to treat the distribution of TV advertising spots.
I have a list of spots and the % of the population who saw them.
What I'm trying to get is a Gamma distribution representing ...
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1answer
35 views
good terminology for the parameters of a lognormal distribution?
Is there any good short terminology for the two parameters of a lognormal distribution?
I have been using mean-log for $\mu$ and volatility for $\sigma$, where the lognormal variable $X$ has $\ln(X)$ ...
