Wardz….

Many researchers are now convinced that a good proportion of the benefit derived from real medication is received from the placebo or “halo” effect. Since everyone, including the doctor, knows that extensive testing goes into new drugs, when one is released for use, the doctor expects it to work, the patient expects it to work – and it does work.

A placebo works because the subconscious mind finds ways of bringing about what you imagine, and believe, will happen.

Because of the undoubted power of the mind to produce healing, or indeed sickness in the patient, doctors worldwide are more and more moving towards holistic medicine. Holistic merely means (W) holistic – treating the whole patient – not just his body, but his mind too.In one of the most dramatic proofs of the power of mental attitude over recovery rates, 152 cancer patients at the Travis Air Force base in California were rated by their doctors, as to whether they had a positive or negative expectation of recovery. Without exception the patients with positive expectations had far more successful remission rates. In fact only 2 out of the negative attitude patients showed any response to treatment at all. So much so that the physician in charge was able to state that …”A positive attitude towards treatment was a better predictor of response to treatment than was the severity of the disease. ”

The above examples all illustrate the power of the imagination to suggest behaviour and attitude changes. In some instances that power was brought about by auto suggestion – the mind voluntarily created its own reality. In other instances the suggestion was from an external source. Someone had “put the idea in the subjects’ head”

Taken From: Accelerated Learning

Perhaps the most widespread usage of supervised data mining involves the classification task. Recall that in classification, there is a target categorical variable. The data mining model examines a large set of records, each record containing information on the target variable as well as a set of input or predictor variables. The analyst would like to be able to generate a classification for the target variable for new records, or
persons, not currently in the database, based on other characteristics associated with that person. Using a (more…)

It is well known that physicians regularly use placebos – sugar pills or pills with absolutely no real medical power. The patients, however, are told that the pills are powerful medicaments. Countless studies have proved the high effectiveness of these “mind only” medications.

In a 1979 study, patients with severely bleeding ulcers were split into two groups. One was told that they were taking a new drug that would bring immediate relief. The second was told that they were taking an experimental drug, but not much was yet known about its effects. The same drug was administered to both groups. 75% of the first group improved – 25% of the second group. The only difference was the patients’ expectations.

At Harvard University Dr. Beecher researched pain in post operative patients. Some were administered morphine and some a placebo. The morphine controlled the pain in 52% of the patients who received it – the placebo controlled the pain in 40% of the patients. In other words the placebo was 75% as effective as the morphine. The brain, expecting the pain relief, actually triggered the production of endorphins, the naturally produced opiate chemicals that block the neurotransmitters which allow the sense of pain to register on the brain.

Taken From: Accelerated Learning

For estimation and prediction models, which employ supervised methods, we are provided with both the estimated (or predicted) value y of the numeric target variable and the actual value y. Therefore, a natural measure to assess model adequacy is to examine the estimation error, or residual, |y ? y|. Since the average residual is always equal to zero, we cannot use it for model evaluation; some other measure is
needed. (more…)

Gallwey, therefore, taught his players to engage, or distract, the verbal Self 1 during play, by describing external events. They would say “bounce” when the ball bounced, or “hit” when it struck the racket. They alternatively would be told to say the words of a song. These distractions, left brain activities, allowed the right brain and limbic system to control the physical play and make all the highly complex intuitive calculations that are involved in assessing ball speed, direction and angle of bounce.

The importance of not over-analysing and of not verbalising an essentially non-verbal activity, was further re-inforced when `Inner Skiing’ was introduced. Small children, it was noticed, could learn to ski well in a day. Adults learn (or are taught) to depend more and more on verbal analysis and to trust intuition less and less.

The inadequacy of the verbal hemisphere controlling the subtle but essentially physical movements of skiing, is made all too obvious when you observe the jerky movements made by people who are clearly rehearsing their instructors words in their minds. The fluent skier very often cannot even describe how he or she does it – yet obviously knows on a non-verbal level. Consequently increasing emphasis has been put on teaching skiing in nonverbal ways – and the positive results can be dramatic.

Taken From: Accelerated Learning

In Chapter 3 we learned how to apply exploratory data analysis (EDA) to learn about the salient characteristics of a data set. EDA represents a popular and powerful technique for applying the descriptive task of data mining. On the other hand, because descriptive techniques make no classifications, (more…)

Tim Gallwey in his best selling book “The Inner Game of Tennis”, showed how visualisation can be much more effective than verbal instruction. As a tennis Pro, he became aware that each pupil’s mind seemed to contain two entities. A Self 1 who observed and commented on the play, and a Self 2 who actually did the playing.

Before a shot Self 1 would issue alI sorts of commands such as “keep your eyes on the ball”, “bend your knees”, “follow through”.

Then, after the shot, would come a verbal analysis – usually critical. When asked why they did this, most players would respond, “I am just talking to myself”.

Gallwey rationalised that “I” and “myself” had to be two separate entities, otherwise no conversation would take place. He developed the theory that Self 2 would be better taught by nonverbal means, and that the “relationship” between Self 1 and Self 2 must be improved to optimise performance. Indeed he observed that an athlete’s peak performance usually occurred when the verbal Self 1 was almost totally set aside. Players on a “hot streak” almost never analysed what they were doing -they were immersed in the physical action and played instinctively and unconsciously. As soon as they tried to exercise conscious control, they lost their fluidity.

Taken From: Accelerated Learning

MODEL EVALUATION TECHNIQUES FOR THE DESCRIPTION TASK
MODEL EVALUATION TECHNIQUES FOR THE ESTIMATION AND
PREDICTION TASKS
MODEL EVALUATION TECHNIQUES FOR THE CLASSIFICATION TASK
ERROR RATE, FALSE POSITIVES, AND FALSE NEGATIVES
MISCLASSIFICATION COST ADJUSTMENT TO REFLECT REAL-WORLD CONCERNS (more…)

We act not according to what things really are – but according to what we expect them to be: believe them to be: imagine them to be.

“Imagination,” said Napoleon, “rules the world”.

He should have known, for he actually rehearsed every battle he ever fought weeks before the event in his mind. Going over his own tactics, visualising the enemy defences, their reaction and the terraine.

Napoleon was 150 years ahead of his time.

Jack Niclaus ascribes his success to visualisation. Before every shot, he actually “sees” the club strike the ball, watches the flight of the ball in the air and “sees” where it comes to rest – all before he actually makes the shot. Top tennis pro’s do it. “Golf is 90% mental, 10% mechanical. “wrote Alex Morrison the father of modern golf teaching. The same can be said of many other sports and the visualisation technique is now widely known as the “Inner Game of Tennis”.

Taken From: Accelerated Learning

Finally, data analysts need to consider the difference between models and patterns. A model is a global description or explanation of a data set, taking a high-level perspective. Models may be descriptive or inferential. Descriptive models seek to summarize the entire data set in a succinct manner. Inferential models aim to provide a mechanism that enables the analyst to generalize from samples to populations. (more…)