Nullkoeffizienten

Nullkoeffizienten, often translated as "null coefficients" or "zero coefficients," refers to coefficients in a mathematical or statistical model that are equal to zero. These zero coefficients indicate that the corresponding independent variable or predictor has no linear relationship with the dependent variable or outcome being modeled, given the presence of other variables in the model. In essence, a null coefficient signifies that the variable it represents does not contribute to explaining the variation in the response.

The presence of null coefficients can arise for several reasons. It might be due to the inherent lack of a relationship between the variables. Alternatively, it could occur in the presence of multicollinearity, where two or more predictor variables are highly correlated. In such cases, the model may assign a zero coefficient to one or more of these correlated variables, effectively attributing their shared explanatory power to another variable. Feature selection techniques in machine learning often aim to identify and remove variables with null or near-null coefficients to simplify models and improve efficiency. Statistical inference, such as hypothesis testing, can be used to determine if a coefficient is significantly different from zero, thereby assessing the variable's actual contribution.