Question 149 - MLS-C01 discussion

The agency wants to analyze the census data for population segmentation, which is a type of unsupervised learning problem that aims to group similar data points together based on their attributes. The agency can use a combination of algorithms that can perform dimensionality reduction and clustering on the data to achieve this goal.

Dimensionality reduction is a technique that reduces the number of features or variables in a dataset while preserving the essential information and relationships. Dimensionality reduction can help improve the efficiency and performance of clustering algorithms, as well as facilitate data visualization and interpretation. One of the most common algorithms for dimensionality reduction is principal component analysis (PCA), which transforms the original features into a new set of orthogonal features called principal components that capture the maximum variance in the data. PCA can help reduce the noise and redundancy in the data and reveal the underlying structure and patterns.

Clustering is a technique that partitions the data into groups or clusters based on their similarity or distance. Clustering can help discover the natural segments or categories in the data and understand their characteristics and differences. One of the most popular algorithms for clustering is k-means, which assigns each data point to one of k clusters based on the nearest mean or centroid. K-means can handle large and high-dimensional datasets and produce compact and spherical clusters.

Therefore, the combination of algorithms that would provide the appropriate insights for population segmentation are PCA and k-means. The agency can use PCA to reduce the dimensionality of the census data from 500 features to a smaller number of principal components that capture most of the variation in the data. Then, the agency can use k-means to cluster the data based on the principal components and identify the segments of the population that share similar characteristics.

References:

Amazon SageMaker Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

Amazon SageMaker K-Means Algorithm