R: Recipes for Analysis, Visualization and Machine Learning

Using neural networks for regression

The nnet package contains functionality to build neural network models for classification as well as prediction. In this recipe, we cover the steps to build a neural network regression model using nnet.

Getting ready

If you do not already have the nnet, caret, and devtools packages installed, install them now. If you have not already downloaded the data files for this chapter, download them now and ensure that the BostonHousing.csv file is in your R working directory. We will build a model to predict MEDV based on all of the remaining variables.

How to do it...

To use neural networks for regression, follow these steps:

1. Load the nnet and caret packages:

   > library(nnet)
   > library(caret)
   > library(devtools)

2. Read the ...