Machine Learning with R - Fourth Edition

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Building Better Learners

When a sports team falls short of meeting its goal—whether it is to obtain an Olympic gold medal, a league championship, or a world record time—it must search for possible improvements. Imagine that you’re the team’s coach. How would you spend your practice sessions? Perhaps you’d direct the athletes to train harder or train differently in order to maximize every bit of their potential. You might also focus on teamwork to use each athlete’s strengths and weaknesses more smartly.

Now imagine that you’re training a championship machine learning algorithm. Perhaps you hope to compete in machine learning competitions or maybe you simply need to outperform business competitors. Where do you begin? Despite the different ...