Data Discretization: A winning strategy

Data Science
Author

Fabian

Published

November 12, 2023

Introduction

Data discretization is a powerful technique that can significantly improve your machine learning models’ performance. In this tutorial, we’ll explore practical implementations with real-world examples and visualizations.

# Import required libraries
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
from sklearn.preprocessing import KBinsDiscretizer

# Set styling for plots
# plt.style.use('seaborn')

Basic Age Discretization Example

Let’s start with a simple example using age data:

# Create sample data
np.random.seed(42)
data = {'age': np.random.normal(40, 15, 1000).clip(18, 90)}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

# Create age bins
age_bins = [18, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90]
age_labels = ['18-30', '31-45', '46-60', '61-75', '76-90']
df['age_group'] = pd.cut(df['age'], bins=age_bins, labels=age_labels)

# Visualize the distribution
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 6))

plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
sns.histplot(data=df, x='age', bins=20)
plt.title('Original Age Distribution')

plt.subplot(1, 2, 2)
sns.countplot(data=df, x='age_group')
plt.title('Discretized Age Groups')
plt.xticks(rotation=45)

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Advanced Discretization Techniques

1. Equal-Width Binning Using KBinsDiscretizer

# Generate sample data
np.random.seed(42)
data = {
    'income': np.random.exponential(50000, 1000) + 30000
}
df_income = pd.DataFrame(data)

# Apply KBinsDiscretizer
est = KBinsDiscretizer(n_bins=5, encode='ordinal', strategy='uniform')
df_income['income_binned'] = est.fit_transform(df_income[['income']])

# Visualize
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 6))

plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
sns.histplot(data=df_income, x='income', bins=30)
plt.title('Original Income Distribution')

plt.subplot(1, 2, 2)
sns.histplot(data=df_income, x='income_binned', bins=5)
plt.title('Discretized Income (Equal-Width)')

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
/Users/fabianlanderos/miniforge3/envs/quarto/lib/python3.12/site-packages/sklearn/preprocessing/_discretization.py:248: FutureWarning:

In version 1.5 onwards, subsample=200_000 will be used by default. Set subsample explicitly to silence this warning in the mean time. Set subsample=None to disable subsampling explicitly.

2. Quantile-Based Discretization

# Apply quantile-based discretization
df_income['income_quantile'] = pd.qcut(df_income['income'], q=5, labels=['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4', 'Q5'])

# Calculate mean income per quantile
quantile_means = df_income.groupby('income_quantile')['income'].mean()

# Visualize
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 6))
quantile_means.plot(kind='bar')
plt.title('Mean Income by Quantile')
plt.xlabel('Income Quantile')
plt.ylabel('Mean Income ($)')
plt.xticks(rotation=45)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
/var/folders/nq/y2lyg7p15txfm5ksrw6f90340000gn/T/ipykernel_59379/873430559.py:5: FutureWarning:

The default of observed=False is deprecated and will be changed to True in a future version of pandas. Pass observed=False to retain current behavior or observed=True to adopt the future default and silence this warning.

Real-World Application: Housing Data

Let’s demonstrate the power of discretization with a housing dataset example:

# Create synthetic housing data
np.random.seed(42)
n_samples = 1000

housing_data = pd.DataFrame({
    'Latitude': np.random.uniform(32.0, 42.0, n_samples),
    'Longitude': np.random.uniform(-124.0, -114.0, n_samples),
    'Price': np.random.exponential(500000, n_samples) + 200000
})

# Discretize locations
housing_data['LatitudeBin'] = pd.cut(housing_data['Latitude'], bins=5, labels=['South', 'South-Mid', 'Mid', 'Mid-North', 'North'])
housing_data['LongitudeBin'] = pd.cut(housing_data['Longitude'], bins=5, labels=['West', 'West-Mid', 'Mid', 'Mid-East', 'East'])

# Calculate average prices by region
region_prices = housing_data.groupby(['LatitudeBin', 'LongitudeBin'])['Price'].mean().unstack()

# Create heatmap
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 8))
sns.heatmap(region_prices, annot=True, fmt='.0f', cmap='YlOrRd')
plt.title('Average House Prices by Region')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
/var/folders/nq/y2lyg7p15txfm5ksrw6f90340000gn/T/ipykernel_59379/674675667.py:16: FutureWarning:

The default of observed=False is deprecated and will be changed to True in a future version of pandas. Pass observed=False to retain current behavior or observed=True to adopt the future default and silence this warning.

Target Discretization Example

Here’s an implementation of the winning strategy mentioned for converting continuous targets to discrete values:

# Generate synthetic continuous target data
np.random.seed(42)
continuous_targets = np.random.normal(5, 2, 1000)

# Define unique target values
unique_targets = np.array([1.25, 2.25, 3.05, 4.05, 4.85, 5.75, 6.55, 7.75, 9.25])

# Transform to nearest discrete target
discretized_targets = np.array([unique_targets[np.abs(unique_targets - y).argmin()] 
                              for y in continuous_targets])

# Visualize the transformation
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 6))

plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
plt.hist(continuous_targets, bins=30, alpha=0.7)
plt.title('Original Continuous Targets')
plt.xlabel('Value')
plt.ylabel('Count')

plt.subplot(1, 2, 2)
plt.hist(discretized_targets, bins=len(unique_targets), alpha=0.7)
plt.title('Discretized Targets')
plt.xlabel('Value')
plt.ylabel('Count')

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Conclusion

Data discretization is a powerful technique that can significantly improve model performance. Key takeaways:

  1. It reduces noise in continuous variables
  2. Improves model interpretability
  3. Can lead to better performance in certain algorithms
  4. Particularly effective in geographic and demographic data

Remember to experiment with different binning strategies and number of bins to find the optimal discretization for your specific problem.

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