STAT 639 Data Mining and Analysis

Instructor: Yang Ni
yni@stat.tamu.edu
TA: Biraj Guha
birajsguha@stat.tamu.edu

Spring 2019

Class Hours: TR 14:20-15:35 Location: BLOC 457

Instructor Office Hours: Tue 13:00-14:00 Location: BLOC 415D
TA Office Hours: TBD Location:TBD

Course Description
This course is an introduction to concepts, methods, and practices in statistical data mining. We
will provide a broad overview of topics that are related to supervised and unsupervised learning.
See the tentative schedule on the last page for details. Emphasis will be placed on applied data
analysis.

Learning Objectives
Students will learn how and when to apply statistical learning techniques, their comparative
strengths and weaknesses, and how to critically evaluate the performance of learning algorithms.
Students who successfully complete this course should be able to apply basic statistical learning
methods to build predictive models or perform exploratory analysis, and make sense of their
findings.

Prerequisites/Corequisites
Familiarity with programming language R and knowledge of basic multivariate calculus, statisti-
cal inference, and linear algebra is expected. Students should be comfortable with the following
concepts: probability distribution functions, expectations, conditional distributions, likelihood
functions, random samples, estimators and linear regression models.

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Suggested Textbooks
• (ISLR) An Introduction to Statistical Learning with Applications in R by Gareth James,
Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie and Robert Tibshirani.
Available online: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/ gareth/ISL/index.html
• (PRML) Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher M. Bishop.
Available online: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2006/01/Bishop-
Pattern-Recognition-and-Machine-Learning-2006.pdf
• (DMA) Data Mining and Analysis: Fundamental Concepts and Algorithms by Mo-
hammed J. Zaki and Wagner Meira, Jr.
Available online: http://www.dataminingbook.info/pmwiki.php
• (ESL) The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction by
Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani and Jerome Friedman. This is a more advanced and more
comprehensive version of the ISLR.
Available online: https://web.stanford.edu/ hastie/ElemStatLearn/

Computing
• Statistical Software: we will primarily use the open source statistical software R.

– Go to http://cran.r-project.org to download R for free.

– We strongly recommend dowloading R-Studio from http://www.rstudio.com and work-
ing in that environment. It is free, and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux operating
systems.
– Also make sure to install ISLR package, which includes the datasets used in the course
book. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ISLR

• Some resources if you are unfamiliar with R:

– An excellent introduction to R is the book
Using R for Introductory Statistics by J. Verzani. The book is freely available at
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Verzani-SimpleR.pdf.
– Additional (excellent) tutorials are the
R Tutorial Videos, http://dist.stat.tamu.edu/pub/rvideos/. The site includes R
scripts and data sets to follow along.
– Other tutorials: An Introduction to R, R for Beginners, simpleR, Princton, Quick R,
R Reference Card, R Manuals, R Wiki.

Homework
Bi-weekly homework will be posted on eCampus and due on Thursday before midnight. Stu-
dents are allowed to work in groups up to 4 people and submit one copy for each group. All
group members are expected to work on all problems. Upload your solution as a single PDF
document on eCampus.

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Pop Quiz
We will have pop quiz randomly during class. Mostly in format of multiple choices, just to test
how well you master the concepts we have learned so far. Each quiz will take no more than 10
minutes.

Grading Policy
• Homework — 20%

• Quiz — 20%

• Midterm Exam — 30%

• Final Exam — 30%

The final letter grade will be assigned according to the following scheme. I may curve up the
scores depending on overall class scores at the end of the semester.

Course Grade Points Needed

A 90-100%
B 80-89%
C 70-79%
D 60-69%
F 0-59%

Course Policies
Copyright Notice
The handouts used in this course are copyrighted. By "handouts", I mean all materials generated
for this class, which include but are not limited to syllabi, quizzes, exams, lab problems, in-class
materials, review sheets, and additional problem sets. Because these materials are copyrighted,
you do not have the right to copy the handouts, unless I expressly grant permission.

Absence
Only university excused absences will be accepted for missing homework or exams. A student
is responsible for providing satisfactory evidence to the instructor to substantiate the reason for
absence. If you know that you will miss an exam for a valid reason, please communicate with
me over email at your earliest convenience. Check http://student-rules.tamu.edu/rule07 for what
constitutes a university excused absence.

Statement of Disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal anti-discrimination statute that provides
comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this
legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that

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provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. If you believe you have a disability
requiring an accommodation, please contact Disability Services, currently located in the Disabil-
ity Services building at the Student Services at White Creek complex on west campus or call
979-845-1637. For additional information, visit http://disability.tamu.edu.

Statement of Plagiarism
As commonly defined, plagiarism consists of passing off as one’s own ideas, words, writing, etc.,
which belong to another. In accordance with that definition, you are committing plagiarism if you
copy the work of another person and turn it in as your own, if you have the permission of that
person. Plagiarism is one of the worst academic sins, for the plagiarist destroys the trust among
colleagues without which research cannot be safely communicated. If you have any questions
regarding plagiarism, please consult the latest issue of the Texas A&M University Student Rules,
under the section "Scholastic Dishonesty".

Academic Integrity Statement

"An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do." The Aggie Honor Council Rules
and Procedures are available at the website: aggiehonor.tamu.edu.

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Tentative Schedule
Day Date Topic Assignment Due
T 1/15 Introduction HW0
TH 1/17 Introduction
T 1/22 Linear Regression
TH 1/24 Classification I HW1 HW0
T 1/29 Classification II
TH 1/31 Classification III
T 2/5 R Session: Classification
TH 2/7 Resampling I HW2 HW1
T 2/12 Resampling II
TH 2/14 R Session: Resampling
T 2/19 Regularization
TH 2/21 R Session: Regularization HW3 HW2
T 2/26 Tree I
TH 2/28 Tree II
T 3/5 R Session: Tree
TH 3/7 In-class Midterm HW4 HW3
T 3/19 Neural Networks I
TH 3/21 Neural Networks II
T 3/26 Clustering I
TH 3/28 Clustering II HW5 HW4
T 4/2 Clustering III
TH 4/4 R Session: Clustering
T 4/9 PCA
TH 4/11 Graphical Models I HW6 HW5
T 4/16 Graphical Models II
TH 4/18 Graphical Models III
T 4/23 Community Detection
TH 4/25 TBD/Final HW6

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