Statistical classificationIn statistics, classification is the problem of identifying which of a set of categories (sub-populations) an observation (or observations) belongs to. Examples are assigning a given email to the "spam" or "non-spam" class, and assigning a diagnosis to a given patient based on observed characteristics of the patient (sex, blood pressure, presence or absence of certain symptoms, etc.). Often, the individual observations are analyzed into a set of quantifiable properties, known variously as explanatory variables or features.
Support vector machineIn machine learning, support vector machines (SVMs, also support vector networks) are supervised learning models with associated learning algorithms that analyze data for classification and regression analysis. Developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories by Vladimir Vapnik with colleagues (Boser et al., 1992, Guyon et al., 1993, Cortes and Vapnik, 1995, Vapnik et al., 1997) SVMs are one of the most robust prediction methods, being based on statistical learning frameworks or VC theory proposed by Vapnik (1982, 1995) and Chervonenkis (1974).
Multiclass classificationIn machine learning and statistical classification, multiclass classification or multinomial classification is the problem of classifying instances into one of three or more classes (classifying instances into one of two classes is called binary classification). While many classification algorithms (notably multinomial logistic regression) naturally permit the use of more than two classes, some are by nature binary algorithms; these can, however, be turned into multinomial classifiers by a variety of strategies.
Naive Bayes classifierIn statistics, naive Bayes classifiers are a family of simple "probabilistic classifiers" based on applying Bayes' theorem with strong (naive) independence assumptions between the features (see Bayes classifier). They are among the simplest Bayesian network models, but coupled with kernel density estimation, they can achieve high accuracy levels. Naive Bayes classifiers are highly scalable, requiring a number of parameters linear in the number of variables (features/predictors) in a learning problem.
Variational Bayesian methodsVariational Bayesian methods are a family of techniques for approximating intractable integrals arising in Bayesian inference and machine learning. They are typically used in complex statistical models consisting of observed variables (usually termed "data") as well as unknown parameters and latent variables, with various sorts of relationships among the three types of random variables, as might be described by a graphical model. As typical in Bayesian inference, the parameters and latent variables are grouped together as "unobserved variables".
Generalized linear modelIn statistics, a generalized linear model (GLM) is a flexible generalization of ordinary linear regression. The GLM generalizes linear regression by allowing the linear model to be related to the response variable via a link function and by allowing the magnitude of the variance of each measurement to be a function of its predicted value. Generalized linear models were formulated by John Nelder and Robert Wedderburn as a way of unifying various other statistical models, including linear regression, logistic regression and Poisson regression.
Bayesian networkA Bayesian network (also known as a Bayes network, Bayes net, belief network, or decision network) is a probabilistic graphical model that represents a set of variables and their conditional dependencies via a directed acyclic graph (DAG). It is one of several forms of causal notation. Bayesian networks are ideal for taking an event that occurred and predicting the likelihood that any one of several possible known causes was the contributing factor. For example, a Bayesian network could represent the probabilistic relationships between diseases and symptoms.
Linear regressionIn statistics, linear regression is a linear approach for modelling the relationship between a scalar response and one or more explanatory variables (also known as dependent and independent variables). The case of one explanatory variable is called simple linear regression; for more than one, the process is called multiple linear regression. This term is distinct from multivariate linear regression, where multiple correlated dependent variables are predicted, rather than a single scalar variable.
PerceptronIn machine learning, the perceptron (or McCulloch-Pitts neuron) is an algorithm for supervised learning of binary classifiers. A binary classifier is a function which can decide whether or not an input, represented by a vector of numbers, belongs to some specific class. It is a type of linear classifier, i.e. a classification algorithm that makes its predictions based on a linear predictor function combining a set of weights with the feature vector.
Bayesian inferenceBayesian inference (ˈbeɪziən or ˈbeɪʒən ) is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, and especially in mathematical statistics. Bayesian updating is particularly important in the dynamic analysis of a sequence of data. Bayesian inference has found application in a wide range of activities, including science, engineering, philosophy, medicine, sport, and law.
