CS 4375: Introduction to Machine Learning
Fall 2023Course Info
Introduction to machine learning theory and practice. Learning outcomes:
- Ability to understand and apply basic learning algorithms: decision trees, nearest neighbor, SVMs, neural networks, etc.
- Ability to evaluate the performance of learning algorithms on real data.
- Ability to explain the trade-offs, both practical and theoretical, of different learning strategies for classification and regression.
Course Staff
Instructor: Nicholas Ruozzi
Office Hours: M 1:00pm-2:00pm, W 10:30am-11:30am, and by appointment in ECSS 3.409
TA: Vasundhara Komaragiri
Office Hours: T 2pm-4pm and R 2pm-3pm in ECSS 2.104
Optional Recitation Section
Where: ECSW 3.250
When: R, 5:30pm-6:30pm and 7pm-8pm
Instructor: James (Jim) Amato
Schedule & Lecture Slides
Week | Dates | Topic | Readings |
1 | Aug. 21 & 23 | Regression & Gradient DescentPerceptron | Bishop, Ch. 1Sections 1 & 2 of Andrew Ng's Lecture Notes |
2 | Aug. 28 & Aug. 30 | Support Vector MachinesDuality & Kernel Methods | Lecture Notes by Andrew NgBishop, Ch. 7 for a different perspectiveBarber, Ch. 17.5 Boyd, Ch. 5 |
3 | Sept. 6 | More Duality and Kernel Methods | Boyd, Ch. 5 |
4 | Sept. 11 & 13 | Support Vector Machines with SlackDecision Trees | Mitchell, Ch. 3 Bishop, Ch. 7.1, SVMs & SVMs with slack Bishop, Ch. 14.4 Online Probability Notes |
5 | Sept. 18 & 20 | More Decision Trees + k Neareset Neighbor Learning Theory & PAC Bounds | Ng, PAC Learning Notes |
6 | Sept. 25 & 27 | VC DimensionBias/Variance Trade-off & Bagging | Bishop, Ch. 14 |
7 | Oct. 2 & Oct. 4 | Boosting | Hastie et al., Ch. 8.7 & Ch. 15 Short Intro. to AdaBoost |
8 | Oct. 9 & 12 | Clustering Midterm (in class Oct. 12) | Hastie et al., Ch. 14.3.6, 14.3.8, 14.3.9, 14.3.12 Bishop, Ch. 9.1 | 9 | Oct. 16 & 18 | PCA |
10 | Oct. 23 & 25 | More PCA Bayesian Methods | Bishop, 1.5, 4.2-4.3.4 Bishop, 2-2.3.4 Bishop, 8.4.1, 9.2-9.4 |
11 | Oct. 30 & Nov. 1 | Naive Bayes Logistic Regression | Chapter 11 |
12 | Nov. 6 & Nov. 8 | Gaussian Mixture Models Neural Networks | Nielsen Ch. 1-3 Bishop 8.1, 5.1-5.3 ConvNetJS Demos |
13 | Nov. 13 & 15 | More Neural Networks | |
14 | Nov. 27 & 30 | Reinforcement Learning More Reinforcement Learning | RL Book | 15 | Dec. 4 & Dec. 6 | Evaluation Metrics Collaborative Filtering + Recap |
Problem Sets
All problem sets will be available on eLearning and are to be turned in there. See the homework guidelines below for homework policies.
Textbooks & References
There is no required textbook, but the following books may serve as useful references for different parts of the course.
- Introduction to Machine Learning by Ethem Alpaydin.
- Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher M. Bishop
- Bayesian Reasoning and Machine Learning by David Barber (free online)
- Machine Learning by Tom Mitchell
- Machine Learning: a Probabilistic Perspective by Kevin Murphy
Exams
All exams will be closed book and closed notes.
Midterm: Early October, in class
Final: 12/11 at 11:00am (see Coursebook for details)
Homework Guidelines*
I expect you to try solving each problem set on your own. However, if you get stuck on a problem, I encourage you to collaborate with other students in the class, subject to the following rules:
- You may discuss a problem with any student in this class, and work together on solving it. This can involve brainstorming and verbally discussing the problem, going together through possible solutions, but should not involve one student telling another a complete solution.
- Once you solve the homework, you must write up your solutions on your own, without looking at other people's write-ups or giving your write-up to others.
- In your solution for each problem, you must write down the names of any person with whom you discussed it. This will not affect your grade.
- Do not consult solution manuals or other people's solutions from similar courses - ask the course staff, we are here to help!
UT Dallas Course Policies and Procedures
For a complete list of UTD policies and procedures, see here.
*adpated from David Sontag