What is regression?
Regression is the process of estimating the relationship between input and output variables. One item to note is that output variables are continuous-valued real numbers. Hence, there are an infinite number of possibilities. This is in contrast with classification, where the number of output classes is fixed. The classes belong to a finite set of possibilities.
In regression, it is assumed that the output variables depend on the input variables, so we want to see how they are related. Consequently, the input variables are called independent variables, also known as predictors, and output variables are called dependent variables, also known as criterion variables. It is not necessary that the input variables are independent of one another; indeed, there are a lot of situations where there are correlations between input variables.
Regression analysis helps us in understanding how the value of the output variable changes when we vary some input variables...