Glossary of terms

This page lists alphabetically the meaning of various terms used in dislib’s documentation:

array-like

an instance of an object that can be interpreted as an array (e.g., a list, a sparse matrix, a NumPy array, etc.)

block

a part of a ds-array that is normally stored remotely.

column

a column in a ds-array.

column block

a block or set of blocks representing a set of columns in a ds-array.

csr_matrix

an instance of a sparse matrix in compressed sparse row format.

ds-array

an instance of a distributed array.

estimator

anything that learns from data. Typically, an object that fits a model given some parameters and input data.

feature

each of the dimensions of a sample array. For example, petal length or color.

fit

learn a model from input data.

label

a number that represents the category of a sample.

ndarray

an instance of a NumPy array.

predict

infer the category of unlabeled data according to a fitted model.

row

a row in a ds-array (also a sample).

row block

a block or set of blocks that represent a set of rows in a ds-array.

sample

an array that normally represents an observation or an instance. For example, the characteristics of a particular flower.

shape

the total number of rows and columns of a ds-array (or NumPy array)

spmatrix

an instance of a SciPy’s sparse matrix.

synchronization

when the execution of a parallel application stalls until certain data is generated, or until all tasks have finished.

task

a unit of computation that can be executed in a remote computer.