Pass the Databricks ML Data Scientist Databricks-Machine-Learning-Associate Questions and answers with CertsForce

The code block provided by the machine learning engineer will perform the desired inference when the Feature Store feature set was logged with the model at model_uri. This ensures that all necessary feature transformations and metadata are available for the model to make predictions. The Feature Store in Databricks allows for seamless integration of features and models, ensuring that the required features are correctly used during inference.

References:

Databricks documentation on Feature Store: Feature Store in Databricks

To filter rows in a Spark DataFrame based on a condition, thefiltermethod is used. In this case, the condition is that the value in the "discount" column should be less than or equal to 0. The correct syntax uses thefiltermethod along with thecolfunction frompyspark.sql.functions.

Correct code:

frompyspark.sql.functionsimportcol filtered_df = spark_df.filter(col("discount") <=0)

Option A and D use Pandas syntax, which is not applicable in PySpark. Option B is closer but misses the use of thecolfunction.

References:

PySpark SQL Documentation

If the model object is passed to the estimator parameter ofCrossValidatorand the cross-validation object itself is placed as a stage in the pipeline, the feature engineering stages within the pipeline would be applied separately to each training and validation fold during cross-validation. This leads to a significant issue: the feature engineering stages would be computed using validation data, thereby leaking information from the validation set into the training process. This would potentially invalidate the cross-validation results by giving an overly optimistic performance estimate.References:

Cross-validation and Pipeline Integration in MLlib (Avoiding Data Leakage in Pipelines).

To improve the likelihood of a more accurate model, the data scientist can increasenum_evalsto 100. Increasing the number of evaluations allows the hyperparameter tuning process to explore a larger search space and evaluate more combinations of hyperparameters, which increases the chance of finding a more optimal set of hyperparameters for the model.

References:

Databricks documentation on hyperparameter tuning: Hyperparameter Tuning

TheSparkTrials()is used to distribute trials of hyperparameter tuning across a Spark cluster. If the environment does not support Spark or if the user prefers not to usedistributed computing for this purpose, switching toTrials()would be appropriate.Trials()is the standard class for managing search trials in Hyperopt but does not distribute the computation. If the user is encountering issues withSparkTrials()possibly due to an unsupported configuration or an error in the cluster setup, usingTrials()can be a suitable change for running the optimization locally or in a non-distributed manner.

References

Hyperopt documentation: http://hyperopt.github.io/hyperopt/

The best approach for the data scientist to take in this scenario is to create a new branch in Databricks, commit their changes, and push those changes to the Git provider. This approach allows the data scientist to make updates and improvements to the feature engineering part of the preprocessing pipeline without affecting the main codebase that runs daily. By creating a new branch, they can work on their changes in isolation. Once the changes are ready and tested, they can be merged back into the main branch through a pull request, ensuring a smooth integration process and allowing for code review and collaboration with other team members.

References:

Databricks documentation on Git integration: Databricks Repos

Ensemble learning is a machine learning technique that involves combining several models to solve a particular problem. The scenario described fits the concept of ensemble learning, where two models, each performing well under different conditions, are combined to create a more robust model. This approach often leads to better performance as it combines the strengths of multiple models.

References

Introduction to Ensemble Learning: https://machinelearningmastery.com/ensemble-machine-learning-algorithms-python-scikit-learn/

One reason that results can differ between sklearn and Spark ML decision trees, despite identical data and hyperparameters, is that Spark ML decision trees test binned feature values as representative split candidates. Spark ML uses a method called "quantile binning" to reduce the number of potential split points by grouping continuous features into bins. This binning process can lead to different splits compared to sklearn, which tests all possible split points directly. This difference in the splitting algorithm can cause variations in the resulting trees.References:

Spark MLlib Documentation (Decision Trees and Quantile Binning).

For large datasets with many variables, Spark ML distributes the training of a linear regression model using iterative optimization methods. Specifically, Spark ML employs algorithms such as Gradient Descent or L-BFGS (Limited-memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno) to iteratively minimize the loss function. These iterative methods are suitable for distributed computing environments and can handle large-scale data efficiently by partitioning the data across nodes in a cluster and performing parallel updates.References:

Spark MLlib Documentation (Linear Regression with Iterative Optimization).

The lack of improvement in model accuracy across evaluations suggests that the optimization algorithm might not be effectively exploring the hyperparameter space. Iterative optimization algorithms like Tree-structured Parzen Estimators (TPE) or Bayesian Optimization can adapt based on previous evaluations, guiding the search towards more promising regions of the hyperparameter space.

Changing the optimization algorithm can lead to better utilization of the information gathered during each evaluation, potentially improving the overall accuracy.

References:

Hyperparameter Optimization with Hyperopt