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Top Statistical Concepts Data Scientists should be aware of

statistical concepts data scientists

Data science projects rely heavily on statistics. They help you get a better understanding of the dataset and also for extracting insights from the data. It is a crucial area, and every data scientist should be familiar with fundamental statistical ideas. Let us go through the fundamental statistical principles that are widely used in data science projects, as well as the circumstances in which they can be applied and how to apply them in Python.

Probability distribution

A probability distribution is a function that calculates the likelihood of each conceivable experiment event. You are on the right track if you picture a bell curve. It depicts how well the values of a random variable are scattered at a glance. Random variables can be discrete or continuous, and hence distributions can be discrete or continuous.

Discrete and continuous variables

A discrete distribution is one where the data can only assume a limited number of values, such as integers. A continuous distribution is one where data can assume any value within a given range of values (which may be infinite). The values in a discrete distribution can be assigned probabilities 2013 2013 – for example, “the probability that the web page will have 12 hits in an hour is 0.15.” A continuous distribution, on the other hand, has an infinite number of values, and the assumptions with any one of those values are null. As a result, continuous distributions are frequently characterized in terms of probability density, which may be translated into the likelihood that a value will fall inside a given range.

Descriptive statistics

You are staring at a spreadsheet at your data science job. What is the best way to get a high-level explanation of what you have? The answer is descriptive statistics. Some of these terms are presumably familiar to you: the mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation…

Regardless of the objective, these will immediately uncover significant properties of your dataset and inform your approach. Let us look at a few of the most commonly used descriptive statistics.

Mean

The mean is the total of the values divided by the number of values (also known as “average” or “anticipated value”).

Median

The median is the middle value in a set of numbers. If there are two numbers in the middle, then the average of these two numbers is called the median.

Mode

The mode is the most prevalent value(s) in your dataset.

Dimensionality reduction

While you work in the data science industry, if you have multiple inputs or your data is computationally cumbersome, you can use dimensional reduction. This is the process by which high-dimensional data is projected into a lower-dimensional one, but it is important to remember that you do not lose anything from the original dataset’s important features.

For example:

  • A reduced number of dimensions in data means reduced training time and computer resources are required, which improves the overall performance of the machine learning algorithms — Machine learning problems with many features require exceptionally long training times. The majority of data points in high-dimensional space are quite close to the space’s edge. This is due to a large amount of space available in high dimensions. The majority of data points in a high-dimensional dataset are likely to be far apart. As a result, the machine learning algorithms are unable to train efficiently and effectively on high-dimensional data. That type of difficulty is known as the curse of dimensionality in machine learning – this is just a technical term that need not be worried about.
  • When an independent variable is substantially associated with several of the other independent variables in a regression, this is known as multicollinearity. This is used through dimensionality reduction, which merges highly correlated data into a large set of variables. Multicollinearity will be addressed in this way.

Under-sampling and over-sampling

When professionals in a data science job do not have enough information, they should use oversampling. One is common, or the majority, while the other is uncommon, or the minority. Data scientists raise several unusual events by over-sampling. When there is enough data for an accurate analysis, under-sampling is appropriate.

 

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