Podcast
Questions and Answers
What is the main purpose of statistical modeling?
What is the main purpose of statistical modeling?
- To simulate natural processes exactly as they occur
- To represent the nature of reality through various lenses (correct)
- To create artificial constructions without any abstraction
- To ignore extraneous details in the model
In statistical modeling, what do probability distributions help with?
In statistical modeling, what do probability distributions help with?
- Assigning probabilities to all possible outcomes
- Modeling natural processes exactly
- Estimating parameters from the data (correct)
- Visualizing the data flow
What do mean (μ) and parameter σ control in probability distributions?
What do mean (μ) and parameter σ control in probability distributions?
- Both μ and σ control the centering of the distribution
- Both μ and σ control the shape of the distribution
- μ controls where the distribution is centered, and σ controls how spread out it is (correct)
- σ controls where the distribution is centered, and μ controls its spread
What is one key factor to consider when analyzing a model for overlooked details?
What is one key factor to consider when analyzing a model for overlooked details?
Why are probability distributions considered as building blocks of statistical models?
Why are probability distributions considered as building blocks of statistical models?
What helps draw a picture of the underlying process in statistical modeling?
What helps draw a picture of the underlying process in statistical modeling?
What does the conditional distribution p(x|y) represent?
What does the conditional distribution p(x|y) represent?
In the context of modeling, what does fitting a model involve?
In the context of modeling, what does fitting a model involve?
What is meant by overfitting a model?
What is meant by overfitting a model?
When fitting a model, what are the estimators obtained from the data?
When fitting a model, what are the estimators obtained from the data?
Which optimization methods are commonly used in fitting models?
Which optimization methods are commonly used in fitting models?
In a multivariate setting, what does the joint distribution represent?
In a multivariate setting, what does the joint distribution represent?
What is the process to find the best r-dimensional approximation to a dataset D?
What is the process to find the best r-dimensional approximation to a dataset D?
How is the r-dimensional subspace chosen in principal component analysis?
How is the r-dimensional subspace chosen in principal component analysis?
What does the value α represent when choosing the dimensionality in principal component analysis?
What does the value α represent when choosing the dimensionality in principal component analysis?
In practice, what is a common value used for the variance threshold α?
In practice, what is a common value used for the variance threshold α?
Which step helps in selecting the fewest number of dimensions that captures at least α fraction of the total variance?
Which step helps in selecting the fewest number of dimensions that captures at least α fraction of the total variance?
In multivariate functions, what role do eigenvalues and eigenvectors play?
In multivariate functions, what role do eigenvalues and eigenvectors play?
