Following the course of this morning, I got a very interesting question from a student of mine. The question was about having non-significant components in a splineregression. Should we consider a model with a small number of knots and all components significant, or one with a (much) larger number of knots, and a lot of knots non-significant? My initial intuition was to prefer the second alternative, like in autoregressive models in R. When…
In order to illustrate the problem of chosing a classification model consider some simulated data, > n = 500 > set.seed(1) > X = rnorm(n) > ma = 10-(X+1.5)^2*2 > mb = -10+(X-1.5)^2*2 > M = cbind(ma,mb) > set.seed(1) > Z = sample(1:2,size=n,replace=TRUE) > Y = ma*(Z==1)+mb*(Z==2)+rnorm(n)*5 > df = data.frame(Z=as.factor(Z),X,Y) A first strategy is to split the dataset in two parts, a training dataset, and a testing dataset. >…
In my previous post, An Attempt to Understand Boosting Algorithm(s), I was puzzled by the boosting convergence when I was using some spline functions (more specifically linear by parts and continuous regression functions). I was using > library(splines) > fit=lm(y~bs(x,degree=1,df=3),data=df) The problem with that spline function is that knots seem to be fixed. The iterative boosting algorithm is start with some regression model compute the residuals, including some shrinkage parameter, then…
A few days ago, I was asked if we should spend a lot of time to choose the distribution we use, in GLMs, for (actuarial) ratemaking. On that topic, I usually claim that the family is not the most important parameter in the regression model. Consider the following dataset > db <- data.frame(x=c(1,2,3,4,5),y=c(1,2,4,2,6)) > plot(db,xlim=c(0,6),ylim=c(-1,8),pch=19) To visualize a regression model, use the following code > nd=data.frame(x=seq(0,6,by=.1)) > add_predict = function(reg){…
Let us continue our discussion on smoothing techniques in regression. Assume that . where is some unkown function, but assumed to be sufficently smooth. For instance, assume that is continuous, that exists, and is continuous, that exists and is also continuous, etc. If is smooth enough, Taylor’s expansion can be used. Hence, for which can also be writen as for some ‘s. The first part is simply a polynomial. The second…
Wednesday, in class, we’ve seen how to visualize a multiple regression model (with two continuous explanatory variables). Here, the goal is to predict the average cost of an insurance claim, using some covariates, e.g. the age of the driver, and the age of the car (recall that losses here are liability losses). The prediction obtained from a (standard) generalized linear model, with a log-link > reg1=glm(cout~ageconducteur+agevehicule,data=base,family=Gamma(link="log")) The code to visualize…
One of the main attractions of R (for me) is the ability to produce high quality graphics that look just the way you want them to. The basic plot functions are generally excellent for exploratory work and for getting to know your data. Most packages have additional functions for appropriate exploratory work or for summarizing […]
One of the main attractions of R (for me) is the ability to produce high quality graphics that look just the way you want them to. The basic plot functions are generally excellent for exploratory work and for getting to know your data. Most packages have additional functions for appropriate exploratory work or for summarizing […]
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