Stochastic optimization refers to the use of randomness in the objective function or in the optimization algorithm. Challenging optimization algorithms, such as high-dimensional nonlinear objective problems, may contain multiple local optima in which deterministic optimization algorithms may get stuck. Stochastic optimization algorithms provide an alternative approach that permits less optimal local decisions to be made […]
In this tutorial, you will discover how to implement the Bayesian Optimization algorithm for complex optimization problems. Global optimization is a challenging problem of finding an input that results in the minimum or maximum cost of a given objective function. Typically, the form of the objective function is complex and intractable to analyze and is […]
Deep learning is not a magic bullet, but the techniques have shown to be highly effective in a large number of very challenging problem domains. This means that there is a ton of demand by businesses for effective deep learning practitioners. The problem is, how can the average business differentiate between good and bad practitioners? […]
Human activity recognition is the problem of classifying sequences of accelerometer data recorded by specialized harnesses or smart phones into known well-defined movements. Classical approaches to the problem involve hand crafting features from the time series data based on fixed-sized windows and training machine learning models, such as ensembles of decision trees. The difficulty is […]
Human activity recognition is the problem of classifying sequences of accelerometer data recorded by specialized harnesses or smart phones into known well-defined movements. Classical approaches to the problem involve hand crafting features from the time series data based on fixed-sized windows and training machine learning models, such as ensembles of decision trees. The difficulty is […]
Spot-checking algorithms is a technique in applied machine learning designed to quickly and objectively provide a first set of results on a new predictive modeling problem. Unlike grid searching and other types of algorithm tuning that seek the optimal algorithm or optimal configuration for an algorithm, spot-checking is intended to evaluate a diverse set of […]
Indoor movement prediction involves using wireless sensor strength data to predict the location and motion of subjects within a building. It is a challenging problem as there is no direct analytical model to translate the variable length traces of signal strength data from multiple sensors into user behavior. The ‘indoor user movement‘ dataset is a […]
Statistics and machine learning are two very closely related fields. In fact, the line between the two can be very fuzzy at times. Nevertheless, there are methods that clearly belong to the field of statistics that are not only useful, but invaluable when working on a machine learning project. It would be fair to say […]
A common problem in applied machine learning is determining whether input features are relevant to the outcome to be predicted. This is the problem of feature selection. In the case of classification problems where input variables are also categorical, we can use statistical tests to determine whether the output variable is dependent or independent of […]
Data summarization provides a convenient way to describe all of the values in a data sample with just a few statistical values. The mean and standard deviation are used to summarize data with a Gaussian distribution, but may not be meaningful, or could even be misleading, if your data sample has a non-Gaussian distribution. In […]
