Mastering Predictive Analytics with R - Second Edition

Chapter 5. Neural Networks

So far, we've looked at two of the most well-known methods used for predictive modeling. Linear regression is probably the most typical starting point for problems where the goal is to predict a numerical quantity. The model is based on a linear combination of input features. Logistic regression uses a nonlinear transformation of this linear feature combination in order to restrict the range of the output in the interval [0,1]. In so doing, it predicts the probability that the output belongs to one of two classes. Thus, it is a very well-known technique for classification.

Both methods share the disadvantage that they are not robust when dealing with many input features. In addition, logistic regression is typically used ...