When Big Data Goes Local, Small Data Gets Big

In an earlier article "The Importance of Location in Real Estate, Weather, and Machine Learning," various meanings and applications of location-based discovery in data science and machine learning were discussed. One algorithm described there is a powerful but strangely named machine learning algorithm: the Support Vector Machine (SVM). In the remarks below, we summarize the significance and utility of another powerful but strangely named machine learning algorithm that focuses on location: Local Linear Embedding (LLE). LLE is a specific example from the general category of Manifold Learning algorithms. The most famous example of manifold learning with LLE is the Swiss jelly roll example (illustrated above).