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Introduction to Statistical Modeling in big data

Statistical modeling is a method in data mining and machine learning that creates mathematical models to describe relationships among variables for prediction. The Naive Bayes classifier is a popular statistical model that simplifies computations by assuming feature independence, making it efficient for classification tasks like spam detection. While it performs well, it has limitations such as sensitivity to zero probabilities and the assumption of independence among features.

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10 views3 pages

Introduction to Statistical Modeling in big data

Statistical modeling is a method in data mining and machine learning that creates mathematical models to describe relationships among variables for prediction. The Naive Bayes classifier is a popular statistical model that simplifies computations by assuming feature independence, making it efficient for classification tasks like spam detection. While it performs well, it has limitations such as sensitivity to zero probabilities and the assumption of independence among features.

Uploaded by

priyavijayagopalan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introduction to Statistical Modeling

What is Statistical Modeling?


Statistical modeling is a core method in data mining and machine learning that uses statistical
methods to create mathematical models describing relationships among variables in data. The
goal is to explain the data and predict future observations.

 Models are built from training data.


 Parameters are estimated to best fit the data.
 Models are validated using separate test data.

Key Concepts
1. Random Variables and Probability Distributions

 A random variable represents a data attribute whose values result from some
probabilistic process.
 The probability distribution defines the likelihood of different outcomes.
 Common distributions:
o Bernoulli (binary outcomes)
o Gaussian/Normal (continuous, bell-shaped)

2. Probabilistic Models for Classification

Statistical classification models predict the class label of an instance based on estimated
probabilities.

 For an instance with features X=(x1,x2,...,xn) the goal is to compute the probability of
class CC:

P(C∣X)=P(X∣C)P(C)/P(X)

 Bayes’ theorem is used to invert the conditional probabilities.

3. Naive Bayes Classifier

 Assumes conditional independence of features given the class label:

P(X∣C)=∏i=1n P(x_i | C)

 Simplifies computation drastically.


 Despite the strong independence assumption, often works well in practice.
Building a Statistical Model: Naive Bayes Example

Example: Classifying Email as Spam or Not Spam

Dataset:

Email ID Contains "buy" Contains "free" Contains "click" Class (Spam/Not Spam)
1 Yes No Yes Spam
2 No Yes No Not Spam
3 Yes Yes Yes Spam
4 No No Yes Not Spam

Step 1: Calculate Prior Probabilities P(Spam)P(\text{Spam}) and P(Not Spam)

 P(Spam)=2/4=0.5
 P(Not Spam)=2/4=0.5

Step 2: Calculate Conditional Probabilities for Each Feature Given Class

| Feature | P(Yes∣Spam) | P(No∣Spam)| P(Yes∣Not Spam) | P(No∣Not Spam)


|-----------------|-------------------------------|------------------------------|-----------------------------------|-
---------------------------------|
| Contains "buy" | 2/2=1.0 |
| Contains "free" | 1/2=0.5|
| Contains "click"| 2/2=1.0|

Step 3: Classify a New Email

Suppose a new email contains "buy" = Yes, "free" = No, "click" = Yes. We want to predict if it's
spam.

 Compute:

P(Spam∣X)∝P(Spam)×P(buy=Yes∣Spam)×P(free=No∣Spam)×P(click=Yes∣Spam) |
=0.5×1.0×0.5×1.0=0.25
Similarly,

P (Not Spam∣X)∝0.5×0×0.5×0.5=0

Since P(Spam∣X)>P(Not Spam∣X) Spam.

Advantages and Limitations of Statistical Modeling (Naive


Bayes)
 Advantages:
o Simple to implement.
o Efficient and scalable.
o Performs well with high-dimensional data.
 Limitations:
o Assumes feature independence (often violated in practice).
o Sensitive to zero probabilities (handled by smoothing techniques like Laplace
smoothing).

Summary
 Statistical modeling provides a probabilistic framework for data classification and
prediction.
 Naive Bayes is a foundational statistical model that is widely used due to its simplicity
and surprisingly good performance.
 Estimation of prior and conditional probabilities is key.
 Model evaluation is necessary to ensure accuracy.

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