Learning Predictive Analytics with R

Book Description:

R is statistical software that is used for data analysis. There are two main types of learning from data: unsupervised learning, where the structure of data is extracted automatically; and supervised learning, where a labeled part of the data is used to learn the relationship or scores in a target attribute. As important information is often hidden in a lot of data, R helps to extract that information with its many standard and cutting-edge statistical functions.

This book is packed with easy-to-follow guidelines that explain the workings of the many key data mining tools of R, which are used to discover knowledge from your data.

You will learn how to perform key predictive analytics tasks using R, such as train and test predictive models for classification and regression tasks, score new data sets and so on. All chapters will guide you in acquiring the skills in a practical way. Most chapters also include a theoretical introduction that will sharpen your understanding of the subject matter and invite you to go further.

The book familiarizes you with the most common data mining tools of R, such as k-means, hierarchical regression, linear regression, association rules, principal component analysis, multilevel modeling, k-NN, Naive Bayes, decision trees, and text mining. It also provides a description of visualization techniques using the basic visualization tools of R as well as lattice for visualizing patterns in data organized in groups. This book is invaluable for anyone fascinated by the data mining opportunities offered by GNU R and its packages.