Databricks-Machine-Learning-Associate Exam Dumps : Databricks Certified Machine Learning Associate Exam

In the context of Spark MLlib, an estimator refers to an algorithm which can be "fit" on a DataFrame to produce a model (referred to as a Transformer), which can then be used to transform one DataFrame into another, typically adding predictions or model scores. This is a fundamental concept in machine learning pipelines in Spark, where the workflow includes fitting estimators to data to produce transformers.

References

• Spark MLlib Documentation:https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/ml-pipeline.html#estimators

To address the concern about standardizing features prior to splitting the data, the correct approach is to use the Pipeline API to ensure that only the training data's summary statistics are used to standardize the test data. This is achieved by fitting the StandardScaler (or any scaler) on the training data and then transforming both the training and test data using the fitted scaler. This approach prevents information leakage from the test data into the model training process and ensures that the model is evaluated fairly.References:

• Best Practices in Preprocessing in Spark ML (Handling Data Splits and Feature Standardization).

One-hot encoding transforms categorical variables into a format that can be provided to machine learning algorithms to better predict the output. However, when done prematurely or universally within a feature repository, it can be problematic:

• Dimensionality Increase:One-hot encoding significantly increases the feature space, especially with high cardinality features, which can lead to high memory consumption and slower computation.
• Model Specificity:Some models handle categorical variables natively (like decision trees and boosting algorithms), and premature one-hot encoding can lead to inefficiency and loss of information (e.g., ordinal relationships).
• Sparse Matrix Issue:It often results in a sparse matrix where most values are zero, which can be inefficient in both storage and computation for some algorithms.
• Generalization vs. Specificity:Encoding should ideally be tailored to specific models and use cases rather than applied generally in a feature repository.

References

• "Feature Engineering and Selection: A Practical Approach for Predictive Models" by Max Kuhn and Kjell Johnson (CRC Press, 2019).