Machine Learning terminologies

What are the most common machine learning terminologies? Well, if you have read previous sections, you know them already.

But we are not going to talk about the terms like supervised learning, unsupervised learning, clustering, regression etc.

Google’s Machine Learning Glossary is another good place to start with if you are keen to learn every term.

Actually, we learn while we progress step by step. Right? 

Because of that, we will learn the most basic machine learning terminologies a beginner learns while she begins her journey.

To do that we can start with the Iris Dataset.

# importing directly from scikit-learn toy datasets
from sklearn.datasets import load_iris

# we will learn what is "bunch" object cwhich is ontaining iris dataset and its attributes
iris_data_set = load_iris()
type(iris_data_set)

Here goes the output.

sklearn.utils.Bunch

If we print out the whole dataset, what will we find?

We’ll find 150 rows and 4 columns.

Consequently, we call each column ‘features’. Remember this is a very important term.

Now we also each feature as predictor, attribute, independent variable, input, regressor, and covariate.

Let’s see how these features look and how we get these inputs.

# let's see how many features are there
print(iris_data_set.feature_names)

# output
['sepal length (cm)', 'sepal width (cm)', 'petal length (cm)', 'petal width (cm)']

Considering linear regression, they are also known as independent variables.

Therefore we can plot them on the X axis. 

On the y axis we can plot the dependent variables and find the best possible prediction.

It could be either a positive relationship or a negative relationship.

By the way, the term ‘relationship’ is also another very important term in machine learning.

So we have learned that each column represents a feature or an independent variable.

What do we call each row?

That is another very important machine learning term.

We call each row an observation. The other names are sample, example, instance, and record.

How do we get each row?

Very easy.

We can print the whole Iris data.

# print the whole iris data which has three categories of flowers
# we will learn about them later
print(iris_data_set.data)

# output
[
 [5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2]
 [4.9 3.  1.4 0.2]
 [4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2]
 [4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2]
 [5.  3.6 1.4 0.2]
 [5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4]
 [4.6 3.4 1.4 0.3]
 [5.  3.4 1.5 0.2]
 [4.4 2.9 1.4 0.2]
 [4.9 3.1 1.5 0.1]
 [5.4 3.7 1.5 0.2]
 [4.8 3.4 1.6 0.2]
 [4.8 3.  1.4 0.1]
 [4.3 3.  1.1 0.1]
 [5.8 4.  1.2 0.2]
 [5.7 4.4 1.5 0.4]
 [5.4 3.9 1.3 0.4]
 [5.1 3.5 1.4 0.3]
 [5.7 3.8 1.7 0.3]
 [5.1 3.8 1.5 0.3]
 [5.4 3.4 1.7 0.2]
 [5.1 3.7 1.5 0.4]
 [4.6 3.6 1.  0.2]
 [5.1 3.3 1.7 0.5]
 [4.8 3.4 1.9 0.2]
 [5.  3.  1.6 0.2]
 [5.  3.4 1.6 0.4]
 [5.2 3.5 1.5 0.2]
 [5.2 3.4 1.4 0.2]
 [4.7 3.2 1.6 0.2]
 [4.8 3.1 1.6 0.2]
 [5.4 3.4 1.5 0.4]
 [5.2 4.1 1.5 0.1]
 [5.5 4.2 1.4 0.2]
 [4.9 3.1 1.5 0.2]
 [5.  3.2 1.2 0.2]
 [5.5 3.5 1.3 0.2]
 [4.9 3.6 1.4 0.1]
 [4.4 3.  1.3 0.2]
 [5.1 3.4 1.5 0.2]
 [5.  3.5 1.3 0.3]
 [4.5 2.3 1.3 0.3]
 [4.4 3.2 1.3 0.2]
 [5.  3.5 1.6 0.6]
 [5.1 3.8 1.9 0.4]
 [4.8 3.  1.4 0.3]
 [5.1 3.8 1.6 0.2]
 [4.6 3.2 1.4 0.2]
 [5.3 3.7 1.5 0.2]
 [5.  3.3 1.4 0.2]
 [7.  3.2 4.7 1.4]
 [6.4 3.2 4.5 1.5]
 [6.9 3.1 4.9 1.5]
 [5.5 2.3 4.  1.3]
 [6.5 2.8 4.6 1.5]
 [5.7 2.8 4.5 1.3]
 [6.3 3.3 4.7 1.6]
 [4.9 2.4 3.3 1. ]
 [6.6 2.9 4.6 1.3]
 [5.2 2.7 3.9 1.4]
 [5.  2.  3.5 1. ]
 [5.9 3.  4.2 1.5]
 [6.  2.2 4.  1. ]
 [6.1 2.9 4.7 1.4]
 [5.6 2.9 3.6 1.3]
 [6.7 3.1 4.4 1.4]
 [5.6 3.  4.5 1.5]
 [5.8 2.7 4.1 1. ]
 [6.2 2.2 4.5 1.5]
 [5.6 2.5 3.9 1.1]
 [5.9 3.2 4.8 1.8]
 [6.1 2.8 4.  1.3]
 [6.3 2.5 4.9 1.5]
 [6.1 2.8 4.7 1.2]
 [6.4 2.9 4.3 1.3]
 [6.6 3.  4.4 1.4]
 [6.8 2.8 4.8 1.4]
 [6.7 3.  5.  1.7]
 [6.  2.9 4.5 1.5]
 [5.7 2.6 3.5 1. ]
 [5.5 2.4 3.8 1.1]
 [5.5 2.4 3.7 1. ]
 [5.8 2.7 3.9 1.2]
 [6.  2.7 5.1 1.6]
 [5.4 3.  4.5 1.5]
 [6.  3.4 4.5 1.6]
 [6.7 3.1 4.7 1.5]
 [6.3 2.3 4.4 1.3]
 [5.6 3.  4.1 1.3]
 [5.5 2.5 4.  1.3]
 [5.5 2.6 4.4 1.2]
 [6.1 3.  4.6 1.4]
 [5.8 2.6 4.  1.2]
 [5.  2.3 3.3 1. ]
 [5.6 2.7 4.2 1.3]
 [5.7 3.  4.2 1.2]
 [5.7 2.9 4.2 1.3]
 [6.2 2.9 4.3 1.3]
 [5.1 2.5 3.  1.1]
 [5.7 2.8 4.1 1.3]
 [6.3 3.3 6.  2.5]
 [5.8 2.7 5.1 1.9]
 [7.1 3.  5.9 2.1]
 [6.3 2.9 5.6 1.8]
 [6.5 3.  5.8 2.2]
 [7.6 3.  6.6 2.1]
 [4.9 2.5 4.5 1.7]
 [7.3 2.9 6.3 1.8]
 [6.7 2.5 5.8 1.8]
 [7.2 3.6 6.1 2.5]
 [6.5 3.2 5.1 2. ]
 [6.4 2.7 5.3 1.9]
 [6.8 3.  5.5 2.1]
 [5.7 2.5 5.  2. ]
 [5.8 2.8 5.1 2.4]
 [6.4 3.2 5.3 2.3]
 [6.5 3.  5.5 1.8]
 [7.7 3.8 6.7 2.2]
 [7.7 2.6 6.9 2.3]
 [6.  2.2 5.  1.5]
 [6.9 3.2 5.7 2.3]
 [5.6 2.8 4.9 2. ]
 [7.7 2.8 6.7 2. ]
 [6.3 2.7 4.9 1.8]
 [6.7 3.3 5.7 2.1]
 [7.2 3.2 6.  1.8]
 [6.2 2.8 4.8 1.8]
 [6.1 3.  4.9 1.8]
 [6.4 2.8 5.6 2.1]
 [7.2 3.  5.8 1.6]
 [7.4 2.8 6.1 1.9]
 [7.9 3.8 6.4 2. ]
 [6.4 2.8 5.6 2.2]
 [6.3 2.8 5.1 1.5]
 [6.1 2.6 5.6 1.4]
 [7.7 3.  6.1 2.3]
 [6.3 3.4 5.6 2.4]
 [6.4 3.1 5.5 1.8]
 [6.  3.  4.8 1.8]
 [6.9 3.1 5.4 2.1]
 [6.7 3.1 5.6 2.4]
 [6.9 3.1 5.1 2.3]
 [5.8 2.7 5.1 1.9]
 [6.8 3.2 5.9 2.3]
 [6.7 3.3 5.7 2.5]
 [6.7 3.  5.2 2.3]
 [6.3 2.5 5.  1.9]
 [6.5 3.  5.2 2. ]
 [6.2 3.4 5.4 2.3]
 [5.9 3.  5.1 1.8]
]

The first element of each row is the value of ‘sepal length (cm)’ and the second element represents ‘sepal width (cm)’.

And the other two elements are ‘petal length (cm)’, and ‘petal width (cm)’.

As we just said, that is also our feature. Each column is a feature.

As a result, from all rows we come to know how many types of data there are.

How do we know that?

Each row or observation has an integer associated with it which is also the target. 

‘Target’ is another very important machine learning term.

Let’s see what it looks like on our Google Colab.

# each observation has an integer associated with it which is also target
print(iris_data_set.target)

# output
[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
 2 2]

We can easily know the target names.

# we can get the target names
print(iris_data_set.target_names)

# output
['setosa' 'versicolor' 'virginica']   

With reference to the machine learning terms, we increasingly feel that there are lots to come.

Therefore, as we progress, we will learn them.

So stay tuned, be happy and cheer up.

For more Macchine Learning beginner examples, please visit the respective branch of the GitHub Repository.

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