Need Help Getting Started with Applied Machine Learning?
These are the Step-by-Step Guides that You’ve Been Looking For!
What do you want help with?
Intermediate
How Do I Get Started?
The most common question I’m asked is: “how do I get started?”
My best advice for getting started in machine learning is broken down into a 5-step process:
- Step 1: Adjust Mindset. Believe you can practice and apply machine learning.
- Step 2: Pick a Process. Use a systemic process to work through problems.
- Step 3: Pick a Tool. Select a tool for your level and map it onto your process.
- Beginners: Weka Workbench.
- Intermediate: Python Ecosystem.
- Advanced: R Platform.
- Best Programming Language for Machine Learning
- Step 4: Practice on Datasets. Select datasets to work on and practice the process.
- Step 5: Build a Portfolio. Gather results and demonstrate your skills.
For more on this top-down approach, see:
Many of my students have used this approach to go on and do well in Kaggle competitions and get jobs as Machine Learning Engineers and Data Scientists.
Applied Machine Learning Process
The benefit of machine learning are the predictions and the models that make predictions.
To have skill at applied machine learning means knowing how to consistently and reliably deliver high-quality predictions on problem after problem. You need to follow a systematic process.
Below is a 5-step process that you can follow to consistently achieve above average results on predictive modeling problems:
- Step 1: Define your problem.
- Step 2: Prepare your data.
- Step 3: Spot-check algorithms.
- Step 4: Improve results.
- Step 5: Present results.
For a good summary of this process, see the posts:
- Applied Machine Learning Process
- How to Use a Machine Learning Checklist to Get Accurate Predictions
Linear Algebra
Linear algebra is an important foundation area of mathematics required for achieving a deeper understanding of machine learning algorithms.
Below is the 3 step process that you can use to get up-to-speed with linear algebra for machine learning, fast.
- Step 1: Discover what Linear Algebra is.
- Step 2: Discover why Linear Algebra is important for machine learning.
- Step 3: Dive into Linear Algebra topics.
You can see all linear algebra posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Linear Algebra in Python
Matrices
Vectors
Matrix Factorization
Statistical Methods
Statistical Methods an important foundation area of mathematics required for achieving a deeper understanding of the behavior of machine learning algorithms.
Below is the 3 step process that you can use to get up-to-speed with statistical methods for machine learning, fast.
- Step 1: Discover what Statistical Methods are.
- Step 2: Discover why Statistical Methods are important for machine learning.
- Step 3: Dive into the topics of Statistical Methods.
You can see all of the statistical methods posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Summary Statistics
Hypothesis Tests
Resampling Methods
Estimation Statistics
Understand Machine Learning Algorithms
Machine learning is about machine learning algorithms.
You need to know what algorithms are available for a given problem, how they work, and how to get the most out of them.
Here’s how to get started with machine learning algorithms:
- Step 1: Discover the different types of machine learning algorithms.
- Step 2: Discover the foundations of machine learning algorithms.
- Step 3: Discover how top machine learning algorithms work.
You can see all machine learning algorithm posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Linear Algorithms
Nonlinear Algorithms
Ensemble Algorithms
Weka Machine Learning (no code)
Weka is a platform that you can use to get started in applied machine learning.
It has a graphical user interface meaning that no programming is required and it offers a suite of state of the art algorithms.
Here’s how you can get started with Weka:
- Step 1: Discover the features of the Weka platform.
- Step 2: Discover how to get around the Weka platform.
- Step 3: Discover how to deliver results with Weka.
You can see all Weka machine learning posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Prepare Data in Weka
- How To Load CSV Machine Learning Data in Weka
- How to Better Understand Your Machine Learning Data in Weka
- How to Normalize and Standardize Your Machine Learning Data in Weka
- How To Handle Missing Values In Machine Learning Data With Weka
- How to Perform Feature Selection With Machine Learning Data in Weka
Weka Algorithm Tutorials
Python Machine Learning (scikit-learn)
Python is one of the fastest growing platforms for applied machine learning.
You can use the same tools like pandas and scikit-learn in the development and operational deployment of your model.
Below are the steps that you can use to get started with Python machine learning:
- Step 1: Discover Python for machine learning
- Step 2: Discover the ecosystem for Python machine learning.
- Step 3: Discover how to work through problems using machine learning in Python.
You can see all Python machine learning posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Prepare Data in Python
Machine Learning in Python
- Evaluate the Performance of Machine Learning Algorithms
- Metrics To Evaluate Machine Learning Algorithms in Python
- Spot-Check Classification Machine Learning Algorithms in Python with scikit-learn
- Spot-Check Regression Machine Learning Algorithms in Python with scikit-learn
- How To Compare Machine Learning Algorithms in Python with scikit-learn
R Machine Learning (caret)
R is a platform for statistical computing and is the most popular platform among professional data scientists.
It’s popular because of the large number of techniques available, and because of excellent interfaces to these methods such as the powerful caret package.
Here’s how to get started with R machine learning:
- Step 1: Discover the R platform and why it is so popular.
- Step 2: Discover machine learning algorithms in R.
- Step 3: Discover how to work through problems using machine learning in R.
You can see all R machine learning posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Data Preparation in R
Applied Machine Learning in R
Code Algorithm from Scratch (Python)
You can learn a lot about machine learning algorithms by coding them from scratch.
Learning via coding is the preferred learning style for many developers and engineers.
Here’s how to get started with machine learning by coding everything from scratch.
- Step 1: Discover the benefits of coding algorithms from scratch.
- Step 2: Discover that coding algorithms from scratch is a learning tool only.
- Step 3: Discover how to code machine learning algorithms from scratch in Python.
- Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch (my book)
You can see all of the Code Algorithms from Scratch posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Prepare Data
Linear Algorithms
Algorithm Evaluation
Nonlinear Algorithms
Introduction to Time Series Forecasting (Python)
Time series forecasting is an important topic in business applications.
Many datasets contain a time component, but the topic of time series is rarely covered in much depth from a machine learning perspective.
Here’s how to get started with Time Series Forecasting:
- Step 1: Discover Time Series Forecasting.
- Step 2: Discover Time Series as Supervised Learning.
- Step 3: Discover how to get good at delivering results with Time Series Forecasting.
You can see all Time Series Forecasting posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Data Preparation Tutorials
Forecasting Tutorials
- How to Make Baseline Predictions for Time Series Forecasting with Python
- How to Check if Time Series Data is Stationary with Python
- How to Create an ARIMA Model for Time Series Forecasting with Python
- How to Grid Search ARIMA Model Hyperparameters with Python
- How to Work Through a Time Series Forecast Project
XGBoost in Python (Stochastic Gradient Boosting)
XGBoost is a highly optimized implementation of gradient boosted decision trees.
It is popular because it is being used by some of the best data scientists in the world to win machine learning competitions.
Here’s how to get started with XGBoost:
- Step 1: Discover the Gradient Boosting Algorithm.
- Step 2: Discover XGBoost.
- Step 3: Discover how to get good at delivering results with XGBoost.
You can see all XGBoosts posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
XGBoost Basics
XGBoost Tuning
- How to Configure the Gradient Boosting Algorithm
- Tune Learning Rate for Gradient Boosting with XGBoost in Python
- Stochastic Gradient Boosting with XGBoost and scikit-learn in Python
- How to Tune the Number and Size of Decision Trees with XGBoost in Python
- How to Best Tune Multithreading Support for XGBoost in Python
Deep Learning (Keras)
Deep learning is a fascinating and powerful field.
State-of-the-art results are coming from the field of deep learning and it is a sub-field of machine learning that cannot be ignored.
Here’s how to get started with deep learning:
- Step 1: Discover what deep learning is all about.
- Step 2: Discover the best tools and libraries.
- Step 3: Discover how to work through problems and deliver results.
You can see all deep learning posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Background
- Crash Course On Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Networks
- Crash Course in Convolutional Neural Networks for Machine Learning
- Crash Course in Recurrent Neural Networks for Deep Learning
Multilayer Perceptrons
Convolutional Neural Networks
- Handwritten Digit Recognition using Convolutional Neural Networks in Python with Keras
- Object Recognition with Convolutional Neural Networks in the Keras Deep Learning Library
- Predict Sentiment From Movie Reviews Using Deep Learning
Recurrent Neural Networks
Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Networks are designed for sequence prediction problems and are a state-of-the-art deep learning technique for challenging prediction problems.
Here’s how to get started with LSTMs in Python:
- Step 1: Discover the promise of LSTMs.
- Step 2: Discover where LSTMs are useful.
- Step 3: Discover how to use LSTMs on your project.
You can see all LSTM posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials using LSTMs in Python with the Keras deep learning library.
Data Preparation for LSTMs
- How to Reshape Input Data for Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- How to One Hot Encode Sequence Data
- How to Remove Trends and Seasonality with a Difference Transform
- How to Scale Data for Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- How to Prepare Sequence Prediction for Truncated BPTT
- How to Handle Missing Timesteps in Sequence Prediction Problems
LSTM Behaviour
- A Gentle Introduction to Backpropagation Through Time
- Demonstration of Memory with a Long Short-Term Memory Network
- How to Use the TimeDistributed Layer for Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- How to use an Encoder-Decoder LSTM to Echo Sequences of Random Integers
- Attention in Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks
Modeling with LSTMs
- Generative Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- Stacked Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- Encoder-Decoder Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- CNN Long Short-Term Memory Networks
- Diagnose Overfitting and Underfitting of LSTM Models
- How to Make Predictions with Long Short-Term Memory Models
LSTM for Time Series
Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Working with text data is hard because of the messy nature of natural language.
Text is not “solved” but to get state-of-the-art results on challenging NLP problems, you need to adopt deep learning methods
Here’s how to get started with deep learning for natural language processing:
- Step 1: Discover what deep learning for NLP is all about.
- Step 2: Discover standard datasets for NLP.
- Step 3: Discover how to work through problems and deliver results.
You can see all deep learning for NLP posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Bag-of-Words Model
- What is the Bag-of-Words Model?
- How to Prepare Text Data for Machine Learning with scikit-learn
- How to Develop a Bag-of-Words Model for Predicting Sentiment
Language Modeling
- Gentle Introduction to Statistical Language Modeling and Neural Language Models
- How to Develop a Character-Based Neural Language Model in Keras
- How to Develop a Word-Level Neural Language Model and Use it to Generate Text
Text Summarization
Word Embeddings
- What are Word Embeddings?
- How to Develop Word Embeddings in Python with Gensim
- How to Use Word Embedding Layers for Deep Learning with Keras
Photo Captioning
- How to Automatically Generate Textual Descriptions for Photographs with Deep Learning
- A Gentle Introduction to Deep Learning Caption Generation Models
- How to Develop a Deep Learning Photo Caption Generator from Scratch
Text Translation
Deep Learning for Time Series Forecasting
Deep learning neural networks are able to automatically learn arbitrary complex mappings from inputs to outputs and support multiple inputs and outputs.
Methods such as MLPs, CNNs, and LSTMs offer a lot of promise for time series forecasting.
Here’s how to get started with deep learning for time series forecasting:
- Step 1: Discover the promise (and limitations) of deep learning for time series.
- Step 2: Discover how to develop robust baseline and defensible forecasting models.
- Step 3: Discover how to build deep learning models for time series forecasting.
You can see all deep learning for time series forecasting posts here. Below is a selection of some of the most popular tutorials.
Forecast Trends and Seasonality (univariate)
- Grid Search SARIMA Models for Time Series Forecasting
- Grid Search Exponential Smoothing for Time Series Forecasting
- Develop Deep Learning Models for Univariate Forecasting
Human Activity Recognition (multivariate classification)
- How to Model Human Activity From Smartphone Data
- How to Develop CNN Models for Human Activity Recognition
- How to Develop RNN Models for Human Activity Recognition
Forecast Electricity Usage (multivariate, multi-step)
Models Types
- How to Develop MLPs for Time Series Forecasting
- How to Develop CNNs for Time Series Forecasting
- How to Develop LSTMs for Time Series Forecasting
Time Series Case Studies
- Indoor Movement Time Series Classification
- Probabilistic Forecasting Model to Predict Air Pollution Days
- Predict Room Occupancy Based on Environmental Factors
- Predict Whether Eyes are Open or Closed Using Brain Waves
Forecast Air Pollution (multivariate, multi-step)
Need More Help?
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If you still have questions and need help, you have some options:
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- Contact: You can contact me with your question, but one question at a time please.