Machine Learning...A Bayesian and Optimization Perspective

Book

Brief

This book gives a unified perspective on machine learning by covering both pillars of supervised learning, namely regression and classification. The book starts with the basics, including mean square, least squares and maximum likelihood methods, ridge regression, Bayesian decision theory classification, logistic regression, and decision trees. It then progresses to more recent techniques, covering sparse modelling methods, learning in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and support vector machines,  Monte Carlo methods, probabilistic graphical models focusing on Bayesian networks, hidden Markov models and particle filtering. Dimensionality reduction and latent variables modelling are also considered in depth. This palette of techniques concludes with an extended chapter on neural networks and deep learning architectures. The book also covers the fundamentals of statistical parameter estimation, Wiener and Kalman filtering, convexity and convex optimization, including a chapter on stochastic approximation and the gradient descent family of algorithms, presenting related online learning techniques as well as concepts and algorithmic versions for distributed optimization.