COSC 6342: Machine Learning, Spring 2012


General Information

 

Instructor:

Ricardo Vilalta (vilalta@cs.uh.edu)

 

Office:

PGH 573

 

Office Hours:

Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:00 - 4:00 PM

 

Class time and room location:

Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00 - 5:30 PM; AH 106 Building

 

Telephone:

(713) 743-3614

 

Textbook:

Pattern Classification by R. Duda, P. Hart, and D. Stork; 2nd Edition, Wiley-Interscience, 2001.

 

Additional Readings:

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher Bishop; 1st Edition. Springer, 2007.

The Elements of Statistical Learning by T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, and J. Friedman; 2nd Edition. Springer, 2009.

 


Information TAs (Teacher Assistants)

 

 

Student: Kinjal Dhar Gupta

Student: Bangsheng Sui

 

Office: PGH 313

  

Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

 

Email: kinjaldhargupta@gmail.com

 

Office: PGH 313

 

Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00 - 4:00 PM

 

Email: suibangsheng@gmail.com

 

 


Course Description

 

Machine Learning is the study of how to build computer systems that learn from experience. It is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence and intersects with statistics, cognitive science, information theory, and probability theory, among others. The course will explain how to build systems that learn and adapt using real-world applications from industry and science (e.g., learning to classify astronomical objects, to predict medical diagnoses, to play chess, etc.).

 

The class will be self-contained (i.e., I will not assume any previous knowledge); a review session on probability and information theory will precede those chapters in need of background knowledge. Main topics include linear discriminants, neural networks, decision trees, support vector machines, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, etc.

 

For more information visit the course on WebCT.

 


Grading

 

 

Graded Work

Weight

2 Midterm Exams

70%

Home works

 

30%

 

 

  


Calendar

 

 

Dates to remember

Events

March 1

1st Midterm Exam

March 13, 15

 

April 17, 19

No class (Spring Holiday)

 

No class

April 26

2nd Midterm Exam

Note: There is no final exam in this course.

 

 


Schedule

 

 

Dates

Topic

January 17,19

Introduction to Machine Learning

 

January 24,26

Probabilistic Learning

January 31, February 2

Linear Discriminants

February 7, 9

Neural Networks

February 14, 16

Decision Trees

February 21, 23

Support Vector Machines

February 28, March 1

Exam Preparation and Midterm Exam 1

March 6, 8

Ensemble Learning

March 13, 15

Spring Holiday

March 20, 22

Unsupervised Learning

March 27, 29

Evolutionary Learning

April 3, 5

Reinforcement Learning

April 10, 12

Graphical Models and Bayesian Networks

April 24, 26

Exam Preparation and Midterm Exam 2

 

 


 

 

Files for Downloading and Additional Class Information

 

Connect to the class through WebCT