Univariate Drift Detection

Why Perform Univariate Drift Detection

Univariate Drift Detection looks at each feature individually and checks whether its distribution has changed. It’s a simple, fully explainable form of data drift detection and is the most straightforward to understand and communicate.

Just The Code

If you just want the code to experiment yourself, here you go:

>>> import nannyml as nml
>>> import pandas as pd
>>> from IPython.display import display
>>> reference, analysis, analysis_target = nml.load_synthetic_binary_classification_dataset()
>>> metadata = nml.extract_metadata(data = reference, model_name='wfh_predictor', model_type='classification_binary', exclude_columns=['identifier'])
>>> metadata.target_column_name = 'work_home_actual'
>>> display(reference.head())

>>> # Let's initialize the object that will perform the Univariate Drift calculations
>>> # Let's use a chunk size of 5000 data points to create our drift statistics
>>> univariate_calculator = nml.UnivariateStatisticalDriftCalculator(model_metadata=metadata, chunk_size=5000)
>>> univariate_calculator = univariate_calculator.fit(reference_data=reference)
>>> # let's see drift statistics for all available data
>>> data = pd.concat([reference, analysis], ignore_index=True)
>>> univariate_results = univariate_calculator.calculate(data=data)
>>> # let's view a small subset of our results:
>>> # We use the data property of the results class to view the relevant data.
>>> display(univariate_results.data.iloc[:5, :9])

>>> display(univariate_results.data.iloc[-5:, :9])

>>> # let's plot drift results for all model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(kind='feature_drift', metric='statistic', feature_label=feature.label)
...     figure.show()

>>> # let's plot distribution drift results for continuous model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.continuous_features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(
...         kind='feature_distribution',
...         feature_label=feature.label
...     )
...     figure.show()

>>> # let's plot distribution drift results for categorical model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.categorical_features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(
...         kind='feature_distribution',
...         feature_label=feature.label
...     )
...     figure.show()

>>> ranker = nml.Ranker.by('alert_count')
>>> ranked_features = ranker.rank(univariate_results, model_metadata=metadata, only_drifting = False)
>>> display(ranked_features)

Walkthrough on univariate drift detection

NannyML’s Univariate approach for data drift looks at each variable individually and conducts statistical tests comparing the chunks created from the data provided with the reference dataset. NannyML uses the KS Test for continuous features and the 2 sample Chi squared test for categorical features. Both tests provide a statistic where they measure the observed drift and a p-value that shows how likely we are to get the observed sample under the assumption that there was no drift. If the p-value is less than 0.05 NannyML considers the result unlikely to be due to chance and issues an alert for the associated chunk and feature.

Let’s start by loading some synthetic data provided by the NannyML package.

>>> import nannyml as nml
>>> import pandas as pd
>>> from IPython.display import display
>>> reference, analysis, analysis_target = nml.load_synthetic_binary_classification_dataset()
>>> metadata = nml.extract_metadata(data = reference, model_name='wfh_predictor', model_type='classification_binary', exclude_columns=['identifier'])
>>> metadata.target_column_name = 'work_home_actual'
>>> display(reference.head())

distance_from_office

salary_range

gas_price_per_litre

public_transportation_cost

wfh_prev_workday

workday

tenure

identifier

work_home_actual

timestamp

y_pred_proba

partition

y_pred

0

5.96225

40K - 60K €

2.11948

8.56806

False

Friday

0.212653

0

1

2014-05-09 22:27:20

0.99

reference

1

1

0.535872

40K - 60K €

2.3572

5.42538

True

Tuesday

4.92755

1

0

2014-05-09 22:59:32

0.07

reference

0

2

1.96952

40K - 60K €

2.36685

8.24716

False

Monday

0.520817

2

1

2014-05-09 23:48:25

1

reference

1

3

2.53041

20K - 40K €

2.31872

7.94425

False

Tuesday

0.453649

3

1

2014-05-10 01:12:09

0.98

reference

1

4

2.25364

60K+ €

2.22127

8.88448

True

Thursday

5.69526

4

1

2014-05-10 02:21:34

0.99

reference

1

The UnivariateStatisticalDriftCalculator class implements the functionality needed for Univariate Drift Detection. After instantiating it with appropriate parameters the fit() method needs to be called on the reference data where results will be based off. Then the calculate() method will calculate the drift results on the data provided to it. An example using it can be seen below:

>>> # Let's initialize the object that will perform the Univariate Drift calculations
>>> # Let's use a chunk size of 5000 data points to create our drift statistics
>>> univariate_calculator = nml.UnivariateStatisticalDriftCalculator(model_metadata=metadata, chunk_size=5000)
>>> univariate_calculator = univariate_calculator.fit(reference_data=reference)
>>> # let's see drift statistics for all available data
>>> data = pd.concat([reference, analysis], ignore_index=True)
>>> univariate_results = univariate_calculator.calculate(data=data)
>>> # let's view a small subset of our results:
>>> # We use the data property of the results class to view the relevant data.
>>> display(univariate_results.data.iloc[:5, :9])

key

start_index

end_index

start_date

end_date

partition

salary_range_chi2

salary_range_p_value

salary_range_alert

0

[0:4999]

0

4999

2014-05-09 22:27:20

2014-09-09 08:18:27

reference

2.89878

0.407

False

1

[5000:9999]

5000

9999

2014-09-09 09:13:35

2015-01-09 00:02:51

reference

3.14439

0.37

False

2

[10000:14999]

10000

14999

2015-01-09 00:04:43

2015-05-09 15:54:26

reference

2.45188

0.484

False

3

[15000:19999]

15000

19999

2015-05-09 16:02:08

2015-09-07 07:14:37

reference

4.06262

0.255

False

4

[20000:24999]

20000

24999

2015-09-07 07:27:47

2016-01-08 16:02:05

reference

2.41399

0.491

False

>>> display(univariate_results.data.iloc[-5:, :9])

key

start_index

end_index

start_date

end_date

partition

salary_range_chi2

salary_range_p_value

salary_range_alert

15

[75000:79999]

75000

79999

2019-04-30 11:02:00

2019-09-01 00:24:27

analysis

455.622

0

True

16

[80000:84999]

80000

84999

2019-09-01 00:28:54

2019-12-31 09:09:12

analysis

428.633

0

True

17

[85000:89999]

85000

89999

2019-12-31 10:07:15

2020-04-30 11:46:53

analysis

453.247

0

True

18

[90000:94999]

90000

94999

2020-04-30 12:04:32

2020-09-01 02:46:02

analysis

438.26

0

True

19

[95000:99999]

95000

99999

2020-09-01 02:46:13

2021-01-01 04:29:32

analysis

474.892

0

True

NannyML returns a dataframe with 3 columns for each feature. The first column contains the corresponding test statistic. The second column contains the corresponding p-value and the third column says whether there is a drift alert for that feature and chunk.

NannyML can also visualize those results with the following code:

>>> # let's plot drift results for all model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(kind='feature_drift', metric='statistic', feature_label=feature.label)
...     figure.show()
../../_images/drift-guide-distance_from_office.svg../../_images/drift-guide-gas_price_per_litre.svg../../_images/drift-guide-tenure.svg../../_images/drift-guide-wfh_prev_workday.svg../../_images/drift-guide-workday.svg../../_images/drift-guide-public_transportation_cost.svg../../_images/drift-guide-salary_range.svg

NannyML also shows details about the distributions of continuous variables and stacked bar charts for categorical variables. It does so with the following code:

>>> # let's plot distribution drift results for continuous model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.continuous_features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(
...         kind='feature_distribution',
...         feature_label=feature.label
...     )
...     figure.show()
../../_images/drift-guide-joyplot-distance_from_office.svg../../_images/drift-guide-joyplot-gas_price_per_litre.svg../../_images/drift-guide-joyplot-public_transportation_cost.svg../../_images/drift-guide-joyplot-tenure.svg
>>> # let's plot distribution drift results for categorical model inputs
>>> for feature in metadata.categorical_features:
...     figure = univariate_results.plot(
...         kind='feature_distribution',
...         feature_label=feature.label
...     )
...     figure.show()
../../_images/drift-guide-stacked-salary_range.svg../../_images/drift-guide-stacked-wfh_prev_workday.svg../../_images/drift-guide-stacked-workday.svg

NannyML highlights the areas with possible data drift. Here, the tenure feature has two alerts that are false positives, from a model monitoring point of view. That is so because the measure of the drift, as shown by the KS d-statistic is very low. This is in contrast to the alerts for the public_transportation_cost for example, where the KS d-statistic grows significantly. The features distance_from_office, salary_range, public_transportation_cost, wfh_prev_workday have been correctly identified as drifted.

NannyML can rank features according to how many alerts they have had within the data analyzed for data drift. NannyML allows viewing the ranking of all the model inputs or just the ones that have drifted. NannyML provides a dataframe with the resulting ranking of features using the code below:

>>> ranker = nml.Ranker.by('alert_count')
>>> ranked_features = ranker.rank(univariate_results, model_metadata=metadata, only_drifting = False)
>>> display(ranked_features)

feature

number_of_alerts

rank

0

salary_range

5

1

1

wfh_prev_workday

5

2

2

distance_from_office

5

3

3

public_transportation_cost

5

4

4

tenure

2

5

5

workday

0

6

6

gas_price_per_litre

0

7

Insights and Follow Ups

After reviewing the above results we have a good understanding of what has changed in our model’s population.

If needed, we can investigate further as to why our population characteristics have changed the way they did. This is an ad-hoc investigating that is not covered by NannyML.

The Performance Estimation functionality of NannyML can help provide estimates of the impact of the observed changes to Model Performance.