Introduction to Feature Engineering
Chapter 1: The Role of Features in Machine Learning
Revisiting the Machine Learning Workflow
What Constitutes a Feature?
Impact of Feature Quality on Model Performance
Common Data Types and Their Challenges
Overview of Feature Engineering Tasks
Quiz for Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Handling Missing Data
Identifying Missing Values
Mechanisms of Missing Data (MCAR, MAR, MNAR)
Simple Imputation Strategies: Mean, Median, Mode
Creating Missing Value Indicators
Multivariate Imputation: KNN Imputer
Multivariate Imputation: Iterative Imputer
Comparing Imputation Methods
Hands-on Practical: Imputing Missing Data
Quiz for Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Encoding Categorical Features
Challenges with Categorical Data
Nominal vs. Ordinal Categories
One-Hot Encoding for Nominal Features
Ordinal Encoding for Ordered Features
Handling High Cardinality Features
Target Encoding (Mean Encoding)
Binary Encoding
Hashing Encoder
Comparing Encoding Methods
Hands-on Practical: Applying Encoding Techniques
Quiz for Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Feature Scaling and Transformation
The Need for Feature Scaling
Standardization (Z-score Scaling)
Normalization (Min-Max Scaling)
Scaling for Outliers
Log Transformation for Skewed Data
Box-Cox Transformation
Yeo-Johnson Transformation
Quantile Transformation
Choosing the Right Scaling/Transformation Method
Hands-on Practical: Scaling and Transforming Features
Quiz for Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Feature Creation
Motivation for Creating New Features
Interaction Features
Polynomial Features
Feature Creation from Date/Time Data
Binning Numerical Features
Domain-Specific Feature Engineering
Automated Feature Creation (Introduction)
Hands-on Practical: Engineering New Features
Quiz for Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Feature Selection
Importance of Feature Selection
Filter Methods Overview
Filter Methods: Variance Threshold
Filter Methods: Univariate Statistical Tests (ANOVA F-value, Chi-Squared)
Filter Methods: Correlation Analysis
Wrapper Methods Overview
Wrapper Methods: Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE)
Wrapper Methods: Sequential Feature Selection (SFS)
Embedded Methods Overview
Embedded Methods: Regularization (Lasso L1)
Embedded Methods: Tree-Based Feature Importance
Hands-on Practical: Selecting Features
Quiz for Chapter 6
Nominal vs. Ordinal Categories
Was this section helpful?
- Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow, Aurélien Géron, 2022 (O'Reilly Media) - A practical guide covering machine learning fundamentals, including data preprocessing and categorical feature encoding, with clear explanations of data types.
- Feature Engineering for Machine Learning: Principles and Techniques for Data Scientists, Alice Zheng, Amanda Casari, 2018 (O'Reilly Media) - This book directly addresses feature engineering strategies and provides dedicated sections on understanding and encoding different types of categorical data.
- The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction, Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman, 2009 (Springer) - A foundational textbook offering a rigorous statistical treatment of machine learning, including discussions on data types and their implications for model building. (2nd edition)
- Preprocessing data, Scikit-learn Developers, 2024 - The official documentation for Scikit-learn's preprocessing module, providing practical guidance on encoding categorical features and the different approaches for nominal and ordinal data.