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Talking about clinical significance

In statistical work in the age of big data we often get hung up on differences that are statistically significant (reliable enough to show up again and again in repeated measurements), but clinically insignificant (visible in aggregation, but too small to make any real difference to individuals). An example would […]

Data science for executives and managers

Nina Zumel recently announced upcoming speaking appearances. I want to promote the upcoming sessions at ODSC West 2016 (11:15am-1:00pm on Friday November 4th, or 3:00pm-4:30pm on Saturday November 5th) and invite executives, managers, and other data science consumers to attend. We assume most of the Win-Vector blog audience is made […]

On accuracy

In our last article on the algebra of classifier measures we encouraged readers to work through Nina Zumel’s original “Statistics to English Translation” series. This series has become slightly harder to find as we have use the original category designation “statistics to English translation” for additional work. To make things […]

A budget of classifier evaluation measures

Beginning analysts and data scientists often ask: “how does one remember and master the seemingly endless number of classifier metrics?” My concrete advice is: Read Nina Zumel’s excellent series on scoring classifiers. Keep notes. Settle on one or two metrics as you move project to project. We prefer “AUC” early […]

y-aware scaling in context

Nina Zumel introduced y-aware scaling in her recent article Principal Components Regression, Pt. 2: Y-Aware Methods. I really encourage you to read the article and add the technique to your repertoire. The method combines well with other methods and can drive better predictive modeling results. From feedback I am not […]