Databricks Databricks-Machine-Learning-Associate Databricks Certified Machine Learning Associate Exam Exam Practice Test

To find the run_id of the run with the best root-mean-square error (RMSE) in an MLflow experiment, the correct line of code to use is:

mlflow.search_runs( experiment_id, order_by=["metrics.rmse"] )["run_id"][0]

This line of code searches the runs in the specified experiment, orders them by the RMSE metric in ascending order (the lower the RMSE, the better), and retrieves the run_id of the best-performing run. Option C correctly represents this logic.

References

• MLflow documentation on tracking experiments: https://www.mlflow.org/docs/latest/python_api/mlflow.html#mlflow.search_runs

A train-validation split is often preferred over k-fold cross-validation (with k > 2) when computational efficiency is a concern. With a train-validation split, only two models (one on the training set and one on the validation set) are trained, whereas k-fold cross-validation requires training k models (one for each fold).

This reduction in the number of models trained can save significant computational resources and time, especially when dealing with large datasets or complex models.

References:

• Model Evaluation with Train-Test Split

To ensure reproducible training and test sets, writing the split data sets to persistent storage is a reliable approach. This allows you to consistently load the same training and test data for each model run, regardless of cluster reconfiguration or other changes in the environment.

Correct approach:

• Split the data.
• Write the split data to persistent storage (e.g., HDFS, S3).
• Load the data from storage for each model training session.

train_df, test_df = spark_df.randomSplit([0.8,0.2], seed=42) train_df.write.parquet("path/to/train_df.parquet") test_df.write.parquet("path/to/test_df.parquet")# Later, load the datatrain_df = spark.read.parquet("path/to/train_df.parquet") test_df = spark.read.parquet("path/to/test_df.parquet")

References:

• Spark DataFrameWriter Documentation

When using theHyperoptlibrary withfmin, the goal is to find the minimum of the objective function. Since you are usingcross_val_scoreto calculate the R2 score which is a measure of the proportion of the variance for a dependent variable that's explained by an independent variable(s) in a regression model, higher values are better. However,fminseeks to minimize the objective function, so to align withfmin's goal, you should return the negative of the R2 score (-r2). This way, by minimizing the negative R2,fminis effectively maximizing the R2 score, which can lead to a more accurate model.

References

• Hyperopt Documentation: http://hyperopt.github.io/hyperopt/
• Scikit-Learn documentation on model evaluation: https://scikit-learn.org/stable/modules/model_evaluation.html

The correct method to randomly split a Spark DataFrame into training and test sets is by using therandomSplitmethod. This method allows you to specify the proportions for the split as a list of weights and returns multiple DataFrames according to those weights. This is directly intended for splitting DataFrames randomly and is the appropriate choice for preparing data for training and testing in machine learning workflows.References:

• Apache Spark DataFrame API documentation (DataFrame Operations: randomSplit).

The F1 score is the harmonic mean of precision and recall and is particularly useful in situations where there is a significant imbalance between positive and negative classes. When there is a class imbalance, accuracy can be misleading because a model can achieve high accuracy by simply predicting the majority class. The F1 score, however, provides a better measure of the test's accuracy in terms of both false positives and false negatives.

Specifically, the F1 score should be used over accuracy when:

• There is a significant imbalance between positive and negative classes.
• Avoiding false negatives is a priority, meaning recall (the ability to detect all positive instances) is crucial.

In this scenario, the F1 score balances both precision (the ability to avoid false positives) and recall, providing a more meaningful measure of a model’s performance under these conditions.

References:

• Databricks documentation on classification metrics: Classification Metrics

For the feature set schema provided, the columns that need to be imputed using the most common value (mode) are typically the categorical columns. In this case,loyalty_tieris the only categorical column that should be imputed using the most common value.customer_idis a unique identifier and should not be imputed, whilespendandunitsare numerical columns that should typically be imputed using the mean or median values, not the mode.

References:

• Databricks documentation on missing value imputation: Handling Missing Data

If you need any further clarification or additional questions answered, please let me know!

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/

In Spark ML, the linear regression model expects the feature column to be a vector type. However, if thefeaturescolumn in the DataFrametrain_dfis not already in this format (such as being a column of type UDT or a non-vectorized type), the engineerneeds to convert it to a vector column using a transformer likeVectorAssembler. This is a critical step in preparing the data for modeling as Spark ML models require input features to be combined into a single vector column.

References

• Spark MLlib documentation forLinearRegression:https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/ml-classification-regression.html#linear-regression

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).

Thesummary()function in PySpark's DataFrame API provides descriptive statistics which include count, mean, standard deviation, min, max, and quantiles for numeric columns. Here are the steps on how it can be used:

• Import PySpark:Ensure PySpark is installed and correctly configured in the Databricks environment.
• Load Data:Load the data into a Spark DataFrame.
• Apply Summary:Usespark_df.summary()to generate summary statistics.
• View Results:The output from thesummary()function includes the statistics specified in the query (count, mean, standard deviation, min, max, and potentially quartiles which approximate the interquartile range).

References

• PySpark Documentation:https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/api/python/reference/api/pyspark.sql.DataFrame.summary.html

Increasing the level of parallelism from 4 to 8 cores can speed up the tuning process if each core can handle the entire dataset. This ensures that each core can independently work on training a model without running into memory constraints. If the entire dataset fits into the memory of each core, adding more cores will allow more models to be trained in parallel, thus speeding up the process.

References:

• Parallel Computing Concepts

Including the entire pipeline as the estimator in the cross-validation process means that all stages of the pipeline, including data preprocessing steps like string indexing and vector assembling, will be refit or retransformed for each fold of the cross-validation. This results in a longer runtime because each fold requires re-execution of these preprocessing steps, which can be computationally expensive.

If only the random forest regressor (rfr) were included as the estimator, the preprocessing steps would be performed once, and only the model fitting would be repeated for each fold, significantly reducing the computational overhead.

References:

• Databricks documentation on cross-validation: Cross Validation

One-hot encoding transforms categorical variables into a format that can be provided to machine learning algorithms to better predict the output. However, when done prematurely or universally within a feature repository, it can be problematic:

• Dimensionality Increase:One-hot encoding significantly increases the feature space, especially with high cardinality features, which can lead to high memory consumption and slower computation.
• Model Specificity:Some models handle categorical variables natively (like decision trees and boosting algorithms), and premature one-hot encoding can lead to inefficiency and loss of information (e.g., ordinal relationships).
• Sparse Matrix Issue:It often results in a sparse matrix where most values are zero, which can be inefficient in both storage and computation for some algorithms.
• Generalization vs. Specificity:Encoding should ideally be tailored to specific models and use cases rather than applied generally in a feature repository.

References

• "Feature Engineering and Selection: A Practical Approach for Predictive Models" by Max Kuhn and Kjell Johnson (CRC Press, 2019).

To filter rows in a Spark DataFrame based on a condition, you use thefiltermethod along with a column condition. The correct syntax in PySpark to accomplish this task isspark_df.filter(col("price") > 0), which filters the DataFrame to include only those rows where the value in the "price" column is greater than 0. Thecolfunction is used to specify column-based operations. The other options provided either do not use correct Spark DataFrame syntax or are intended for different types of data manipulation frameworks like pandas.References:

• PySpark DataFrame API documentation (Filtering DataFrames).

For large datasets, Spark ML uses iterative optimization methods to distribute the training of a linear regression model. Specifically, Spark MLlib employs techniques like Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and Limited-memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (L-BFGS) optimization to iteratively update the model parameters. These methods are well-suited for distributed computing environments because they can handle large-scale data efficiently by processing mini-batches of data and updating the model incrementally.

References:

• Databricks documentation on linear regression: Linear Regression in Spark ML

In the context of Spark MLlib, an estimator refers to an algorithm which can be "fit" on a DataFrame to produce a model (referred to as a Transformer), which can then be used to transform one DataFrame into another, typically adding predictions or model scores. This is a fundamental concept in machine learning pipelines in Spark, where the workflow includes fitting estimators to data to produce transformers.

References

• Spark MLlib Documentation:https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/ml-pipeline.html#estimators

TheOneHotEncoderin Spark ML requires numerical indices as inputs rather than string labels. Therefore, you need to first convert the string columns to numerical indices usingStringIndexer. After that, you can applyOneHotEncoderto these indices.

Corrected code:

frompyspark.ml.featureimportStringIndexer, OneHotEncoder# Convert string column to indexindexers = [StringIndexer(inputCol=col, outputCol=col+"_index")forcolininput_columns] indexer_model = Pipeline(stages=indexers).fit(features_df) indexed_features_df = indexer_model.transform(features_df)# One-hot encode the indexed columnsohe = OneHotEncoder(inputCols=[col+"_index"forcolininput_columns], outputCols=output_columns) ohe_model = ohe.fit(indexed_features_df) ohe_features_df = ohe_model.transform(indexed_features_df)

References:

• PySpark ML Documentation

The suggestion not to one-hot encode categorical feature variables within the feature repository is justified because one-hot encoding can be problematic for some machine learning algorithms. Specifically, one-hot encoding increases the dimensionality of the data, which can be computationally expensive and may lead to issues such as multicollinearity and overfitting. Additionally, some algorithms, such as tree-based methods, can handle categorical variables directly without requiring one-hot encoding.

References:

• Databricks documentation on feature engineering: Feature Engineering

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

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/

To register a model that has been identified by a specific run_id in the MLflow Model Registry, the appropriate line of code is:

mlflow.register_model(f"runs:/{run_id}/model","best_model")

This code correctly specifies the path to the model within the run (runs:/{run_id}/model) and registers it under the name "best_model" in the Model Registry. This allows the model to be tracked, managed, and transitioned through different stages (e.g., Staging, Production) within the MLflow ecosystem.

References

• MLflow documentation on model registry: https://www.mlflow.org/docs/latest/model-registry.html#registering-a-model