Scribd
Upload
27 views10 pages

K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) Algorithm

Uploaded by

Stu udy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
27 views10 pages

K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN) Algorithm

Uploaded by

Stu udy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 10

k-Nearest Neighbors

(k-NN) Algorithm
Swet Chandan
Introduction:
• The k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) algorithm is a simple yet powerful
machine learning technique used for classification and regression
tasks. It is one of the fundamental algorithms in the field of
supervised learning. At its core, k-NN relies on the idea that similar
data points tend to belong to the same class or exhibit similar
numerical values. In this article, we will explore the key concepts of
the k-NN algorithm and how it works.
Basic Concepts:
• Nearest Neighbors: The "k" in k-NN represents the
number of nearest neighbors to consider when making
predictions. If k=3, for example, the algorithm will look
at the three closest data points to determine the class
or value of the data point in question.
• Distance Metric: To identify the nearest neighbors, a
distance metric (e.g., Euclidean distance) is used to
measure the similarity or dissimilarity between data
points. The choice of distance metric can significantly
impact the algorithm's performance.
How k-NN Works:
• Data Representation: Before applying k-NN, the data must be
properly represented. This typically involves converting data into
numerical form, as k-NN relies on numerical distances between data
points.
• Choosing k: Selecting the appropriate value for k is
crucial. Smaller values of k (e.g., 1 or 3) can lead to
noisy results, while larger values may oversmooth the
decision boundaries.
• Finding Neighbors: For a given data point, the
algorithm identifies the k-nearest neighbors by
calculating the distance between the data point and all
other data points in the training dataset.
• Voting or Averaging: In classification tasks, k-NN uses
a majority vote among the k-nearest neighbors to
assign a class label to the data point. In regression
tasks, it calculates the average (or weighted average) of
the target values of the k-nearest neighbors.
Strengths :
• Simplicity: k-NN is easy to understand and implement.
• No assumptions: It doesn't make any assumptions about the
underlying data distribution.
• Versatility: It can be used for both classification and regression tasks.
Weaknesses
• Computationally intensive: Calculating distances to all data points can
be slow for large datasets.
• Sensitivity to k: The choice of k can greatly impact the algorithm's
performance.
• Noisy data: It's sensitive to outliers and noisy data points.
Applications:
• k-NN is widely used in recommendation systems, such as movie or
product recommendations.
• It's also used in image classification, where it can identify objects or
patterns in images.
• Medical diagnosis, anomaly detection, and customer segmentation
are other domains where k-NN finds applications.

You might also like