Joachim M. Buhmann: Catalogue data in Autumn Semester 2014

Name Prof. Dr. Joachim M. Buhmann
FieldComputer Science (Information Science and Engineering)
Address
Institut für Maschinelles Lernen
ETH Zürich, OAT Y 13.2
Andreasstrasse 5
8092 Zürich
SWITZERLAND
Telephone+41 44 632 31 24
Fax+41 44 632 15 62
E-mailjbuhmann@inf.ethz.ch
URLhttp://www.ml.inf.ethz.ch/
DepartmentComputer Science
RelationshipFull Professor

NumberTitleECTSHoursLecturers
252-0535-00LMachine Learning Information 6 credits3V + 2UJ. M. Buhmann
AbstractMachine learning algorithms provide analytical methods to search data sets for characteristic patterns. Typical tasks include the classification of data, function fitting and clustering, with applications in image and speech analysis, bioinformatics and exploratory data analysis. This course is accompanied by a practical machine learning projects.
ObjectiveStudents will be familiarized with the most important concepts and algorithms for supervised and unsupervised learning; reinforce the statistics knowledge which is indispensible to solve modeling problems under uncertainty. Key concepts are the generalization ability of algorithms and systematic approaches to modeling and regularization. A machine learning project will provide an opportunity to test the machine learning algorithms on real world data.
ContentThe theory of fundamental machine learning concepts is presented in the lecture, and illustrated with relevant applications. Students can deepen their understanding by solving both pen-and-paper and programming exercises, where they implement and apply famous algorithms to real-world data.

Topics covered in the lecture include:

- Bayesian theory of optimal decisions
- Maximum likelihood and Bayesian parameter inference
- Classification with discriminant functions: Perceptrons, Fisher's LDA and support vector machines (SVM)
- Ensemble methods: Bagging and Boosting
- Regression: least squares, ridge and LASSO penalization, non-linear regression and the bias-variance trade-off
- Non parametric density estimation: Parzen windows, nearest nieghbour
- Dimension reduction: principal component analysis (PCA) and beyond
Lecture notesNo lecture notes, but slides will be made available on the course webpage.
LiteratureC. Bishop. Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. Springer 2007.

R. Duda, P. Hart, and D. Stork. Pattern Classification. John Wiley &
Sons, second edition, 2001.

T. Hastie, R. Tibshirani, and J. Friedman. The Elements of Statistical
Learning: Data Mining, Inference and Prediction. Springer, 2001.

L. Wasserman. All of Statistics: A Concise Course in Statistical
Inference. Springer, 2004.
Prerequisites / NoticeSolid basic knowledge in analysis, statistics and numerical methods for
CSE. Experience in programming for solving the project tasks.
252-0945-00LDoctoral Seminar Machine Learning2 credits2SJ. M. Buhmann, A. Krause
AbstractAn essential aspect of any research project is dissemination of the findings arising from the study. Here we focus on oral communication, which includes: appropriate selection of material, preparation of the visual aids (slides and/or posters), and presentation skills.
ObjectiveThe seminar participants should learn how to prepare and deliver scientific talks as well as to deal with technical questions. Participants are also expected to actively contribute to discussions during presentations by others, thus learning and practicing critical thinking skills.
Prerequisites / NoticeThis doctoral seminar of the Machine Learning Laboratory of ETH is intended for PhD students who work on a machine learning project, i.e., for the PhD students of the ML lab.
252-5051-00LAdvanced Topics in Machine Learning Information Restricted registration - show details 2 credits2SJ. M. Buhmann, T. Hofmann, A. Krause
AbstractIn this seminar, recent papers of the pattern recognition and machine learning literature are presented and discussed. Possible topics cover statistical models in computer vision, graphical models and machine learning.
ObjectiveThe seminar "Advanced Topics in Pattern Recognition" familiarizes students with recent developments in pattern recognition and machine learning. Original articles have to be presented and critically reviewed. The students will learn how to structure a scientific presentation in English which covers the key ideas of a scientific paper. An important goal of the seminar presentation is to summarize the essential ideas of the paper in sufficient depth while omitting details which are not essential for the understanding of the work. The presentation style will play an important role and should reach the level of professional scientific presentations.
ContentThe seminar will cover a number of recent papers which have emerged as important contributions to the pattern recognition and machine learning literature. The topics will vary from year to year but they are centered on methodological issues in machine learning like new learning algorithms, ensemble methods or new statistical models for machine learning applications. Frequently, papers are selected from computer vision or bioinformatics - two fields, which relies more and more on machine learning methodology and statistical models.
LiteratureThe papers will be presented in the first session of the seminar.