The LASSO model (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) is a recent development that allows you to find a good fitting model in the regression context. It avoids many of the problems 
of overfitting that plague other model-building approaches.
In this Statistically Speaking Training, guest instructor Steve Simon, PhD, explains what overfitting is — and why it’s a problem.
Then he illustrates the geometry of the LASSO model in comparison to other regression approaches, ridge regression and stepwise variable selection.
Finally, he shows you how LASSO regression works with a real data set.
Note: This training is an exclusive benefit to members of the Statistically Speaking Membership Program and part of the Stat’s Amore Trainings Series. Each Stat’s Amore Training is approximately 90 minutes long.
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An incredibly useful tool in evaluating and comparing predictive models is the ROC curve.
Its name is indeed strange. ROC stands for Receiver Operating Characteristic. Its origin is from sonar back in the 1940s. ROCs were used to measure how well a sonar signal (e.g., from an enemy submarine) could be detected from noise (a school of fish).
ROC curves are a nice way to see how any predictive model can distinguish between the true positives and negatives. (more…)
The concept of a statistical interaction is one of those things that seems very abstract. Obtuse definitions, like this one from Wikipedia, don’t help:
In statistics, an interaction may arise when considering the relationship among three or more variables, and describes a situation in which the simultaneous influence of two variables on a third is not additive. Most commonly, interactions are considered in the context of regression analyses.
First, we know this is true because we read it on the internet! Second, are you more confused now about interactions than you were before you read that definition? (more…)
When you have data measuring the time to an event, you can examine the relationship between various predictor variables and the time to the event using a Cox proportional hazards model.
In this webinar, you will see what a hazard function is and describe the interpretations of increasing, decreasing, and constant hazard. Then you will examine the log rank test, a simple test closely tied to the Kaplan-Meier curve, and the Cox proportional hazards model.
Note: This training is an exclusive benefit to members of the Statistically Speaking Membership Program and part of the Stat’s Amore Trainings Series. Each Stat’s Amore Training is approximately 90 minutes long.
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Relative Risk and Odds Ratios are often confused despite being unique concepts. Why?
Well, both measure association between a binary outcome variable and a continuous or binary predictor variable. (more…)
There are not a lot of statistical methods designed just for ordinal variables.
But that doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with few options. There are more than you’d think. (more…)
