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NLP project

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9 views

Assignment

NLP project

Uploaded by

naincy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Predicting Housing Prices Using Machine Learning

1. Project Goal
The goal of this project is to build a machine learning model capable of accurately predicting
housing prices in the Boston area based on various socioeconomic and physical attributes of
the neighborhood. The dataset used for this project, known as the Boston Housing Dataset,
provides insights into how different factors like crime rate, average rooms per dwelling,
accessibility to highways, and more, influence the cost of homes in Boston.

2. Problem Type: Regression


Since the objective is to predict a continuous numeric outcome (housing prices), this project falls
under the category of regression rather than classification. Classification models are used
when the output is categorical, such as spam detection (spam or not spam). Here, however, the
target variable (price) is a continuous number, making regression the suitable approach.

3. Dataset Description
The Boston Housing Dataset is a well-known dataset in the field of machine learning. It
contains 506 samples with 13 features and one target variable:

● Features: Socioeconomic and physical attributes of neighborhoods in Boston, such as:


○ CRIM: Crime rate per capita by town.
○ ZN: Proportion of residential land zoned for large lots.
○ INDUS: Proportion of non-retail business acres per town.
○ CHAS: Charles River dummy variable (1 if the tract bounds river; 0 otherwise).
○ NOX: Nitrogen oxide concentration (pollution level).
○ RM: Average number of rooms per dwelling.
○ AGE: Proportion of owner-occupied units built prior to 1940.
○ DIS: Weighted distances to five Boston employment centers.
○ RAD: Index of accessibility to radial highways.
○ TAX: Property tax rate per $10,000.
○ PTRATIO: Pupil-teacher ratio by town.
○ B: Proportion of Black residents.
○ LSTAT: Lower status of the population (%).
● Target: MEDV - Median value of owner-occupied homes in $1000s (target variable).
4. Data Preprocessing
Data preprocessing involves preparing the dataset for analysis and model training:

● Handling Missing Values: The Boston dataset may have missing or NaN values that
can disrupt model training. Rows with missing data are removed or imputed if necessary.
● Feature Scaling: To standardize the data, features are scaled using StandardScaler.
This ensures that all input variables contribute equally to the prediction.
● Train-Test Split: The data is split into training (80%) and testing (20%) sets, allowing
us to evaluate model performance on unseen data.

5. Feature Selection and Target

● Features (X): All columns except MEDV.


● Target (y): MEDV (median value of homes).

Selecting relevant features ensures that only influential attributes are included in the model,
reducing noise and improving accuracy.

6. Machine Learning Algorithm: Random Forest Regressor


A Random Forest Regressor was chosen for this task. Random Forest is an ensemble
learning method that combines multiple decision trees, making it robust to overfitting and noise.
It is well-suited for regression problems as it averages the predictions of individual trees to
provide an accurate and reliable outcome.

7. Hyperparameter Tuning
The model’s performance was optimized by fine-tuning hyperparameters:

● n_estimators: Number of trees in the forest.


● max_depth: Maximum depth of each tree.
● min_samples_split: Minimum number of samples required to split a node.
● min_samples_leaf: Minimum number of samples required at a leaf node.
● Randomized Search or Grid Search was used to identify the optimal combination of
these parameters, yielding the best possible model accuracy.

8. Model Training and Evaluation Results


The model was trained on the training set and evaluated on the test set:
● Metrics Used: Mean Squared Error (MSE) and R² (R-squared) were used to evaluate
the model’s performance. These metrics indicate how closely the predictions align with
actual values.
● Results: The tuned model produced satisfactory results, with an R² score close to 1,
indicating that the model effectively captures the variance in housing prices based on the
provided features.

Conclusion
This project demonstrates how machine learning can be applied to regression tasks like
predicting housing prices. By leveraging the Random Forest Regressor, we achieved reliable
predictions of Boston housing prices, highlighting the importance of careful data preprocessing,
feature selection, and hyperparameter tuning to enhance model accuracy and generalization.

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