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Tag Archives: Artificial Intelligence
Why Online Education
1) Huge variety of courses from the best professors in the world (see Gamification course from Coursera below) or Machine Learning , Human Computer Interaction
2) They are free ( is a mistake)! time is not free.
Also signature courses at Coursera now offer credible tracks for $39, and they have more support.
Why do you as a student need support? because sometimes you get stuck, and sometimes you need human interaction to stay motivated.
3) Coursera- I love these things-
Can run the course faster at 1.75 times ( because seriously I get distracted otherwise)
Can run the multiple language CC (captions) – reading is so much faster
Best feature- in video quizzes
Most number of courses
Free!
Codeacademy-
Makes learning fun
Makes easy to learn language
I wish someone could mash more of Coursera content with Codeacademy gamification and teach hacking and data sciences to the next generation of hackers!!
Rest of the websites are good, but I stick to Coursera and Codeacademy!
5) Education empowers! Every person who learns R or JMP through a free MOOC will create more value for themselves, customers, and their society, country than had they remain uneducated because they could not afford the training.
Free Machine Learning at Stanford
One of the cornerstones of the technology revolution, Stanford now offers some courses for free via distance learning. One of the more exciting courses is of course- machine learning
About The Course
This course provides a broad introduction to machine learning, datamining, and statistical pattern recognition. Topics include: (i) Supervised learning (parametric/non-parametric algorithms, support vector machines, kernels, neural networks). (ii) Unsupervised learning (clustering, dimensionality reduction, recommender systems, deep learning). (iii) Best practices in machine learning (bias/variance theory; innovation process in machine learning and AI). The course will also draw from numerous case studies and applications, so that you’ll also learn how to apply learning algorithms to building smart robots (perception, control), text understanding (web search, anti-spam), computer vision, medical informatics, audio, database mining, and other areas.
The Instructor
Professor Andrew Ng is Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, the main AI research organization at Stanford, with 20 professors and about 150 students/post docs. At Stanford, he teaches Machine Learning, which with a typical enrollment of 350 Stanford students, is among the most popular classes on campus. His research is primarily on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics, and most universities doing robotics research now do so using a software platform (ROS) from his group.
- When does the class start?The class will start in January 2012 and will last approximately ten weeks.
- What is the format of the class?The class will consist of lecture videos, which are broken into small chunks, usually between eight and twelve minutes each. Some of these may contain integrated quiz questions. There will also be standalone quizzes that are not part of video lectures, and programming assignments.
- Will the text of the lectures be available?We hope to transcribe the lectures into text to make them more accessible for those not fluent in English. Stay tuned.
- Do I need to watch the lectures live?No. You can watch the lectures at your leisure.
- Can online students ask questions and/or contact the professor?Yes, but not directly There is a Q&A forum in which students rank questions and answers, so that the most important questions and the best answers bubble to the top. Teaching staff will monitor these forums, so that important questions not answered by other students can be addressed.
- Will other Stanford resources be available to online students?No.
- How much programming background is needed for the course?The course includes programming assignments and some programming background will be helpful.
- Do I need to buy a textbook for the course?No.
- How much does it cost to take the course?Nothing: it’s free!
- Will I get university credit for taking this course?No.Interested in learning machine learning-
Well here is the website to enroll http://jan2012.ml-class.org/
Interview Luis Torgo Author Data Mining with R
Here is an interview with Prof Luis Torgo, author of the recent best seller “Data Mining with R-learning with case studies”.
Ajay- Describe your career in science. How do you think can more young people be made interested in science.
Luis- My interest in science only started after I’ve finished my degree. I’ve entered a research lab at the University of Porto and started working on Machine Learning, around 1990. Since then I’ve been involved generally in data analysis topics both from a research perspective as well as from a more applied point of view through interactions with industry partners on several projects. I’ve spent most of my career at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto, but since 2008 I’m at the department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Sciences of the same university. At the same time I’ve been a researcher at LIAAD / Inesc Porto LA (www.liaad.up.pt).
I like a lot what I do and like science and the “scientific way of thinking”, but I cannot say that I’ve always thought of this area as my “place”. Most of all I like solving challenging problems through data analysis. If that translates into some scientific outcome than I’m more satisfied but that is not my main goal, though I’m kind of “forced” to think about that because of the constraints of an academic career.
That does not mean I’m not passionate about science, I just think there are many more ways of “doing science” than what is reflected in the usual “scientific indicators” that most institutions seem to be more and more obsessed about.
Regards interesting young people in science that is a hard question that I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer. I do tend to think that young people are more sensible to concrete examples of problems they think are interesting and that science helps in solving, as a way of finding a motivation for facing the hard work they will encounter in a scientific career. I do believe in case studies as a nice way to learn and motivate, and thus my book
Ajay- Describe your new book “Data Mining with R, learning with case studies” Why did you choose a case study based approach? who is the target audience? What is your favorite case study from the book
Luis- This book is about learning how to use R for data mining. The book follows a “learn by doing it” approach to data mining instead of the more common theoretical description of the available techniques in this discipline. This is accomplished by presenting a series of illustrative case studies for which all necessary steps, code and data are provided to the reader. Moreover, the book has an associated web page (www.liaad.up.pt/~ltorgo/DataMiningWithR) where all code inside the book is given so that easy copy-paste is possible for the more lazy readers.
The language used in the book is very informal without many theoretical details on the used data mining techniques. For obtaining these theoretical insights there are already many good data mining books some of which are referred in “further readings” sections given throughout the book. The decision of following this writing style had to do with the intended target audience of the book.
In effect, the objective was to write a monograph that could be used as a supplemental book for practical classes on data mining that exist in several courses, but at the same time that could be attractive to professionals working on data mining in non-academic environments, and thus the choice of this more practically oriented approach.
Regards my favorite case study that is a hard question for an author… still I would probably choose the “Predicting Stock Market Returns” case study (Chapter 3). Not only because I like this challenging problem, but mainly because the case study addresses all aspects of knowledge discovery in a real world scenario and not only the construction of predictive models. It tackles data collection, data pre-processing, model construction, transforming predictions into actions using different trading policies, using business-related performance metrics, implementing a trading simulator for “real-world” evaluation, and laying out grounds for constructing an online trading system.
Obviously, for all these steps there are far too many options to be possible to describe/evaluate all of them in a chapter, still I do believe that for the reader it is important to see the overall picture, and read about the relevant questions on this problem and some possible paths that can be followed at these different steps.
In other words: do not expect to become rich with the solution I describe in the chapter !
Ajay- Apart from R, what other data mining software do you use or have used in the past. How would you compare their advantages and disadvantages with R
Luis- I’ve played around with Clementine, Weka, RapidMiner and Knime, but really only playing with teaching goals, and no serious use/evaluation in the context of data mining projects. For the latter I mainly use R or software developed by myself (either in R or other languages). In this context, I do not think it is fair to compare R with these or other tools as I lack serious experience with them. I can however, tell you about what I see as the main pros and cons of R. The main reason for using R is really not only the power of the tool that does not stop surprising me in terms of what already exists and keeps appearing as contributions of an ever growing community, but mainly the ability of rapidly transforming ideas into prototypes. Regards some of its drawbacks I would probably mention the lack of efficiency when compared to other alternatives and the problem of data set sizes being limited by main memory.
I know that there are several efforts around for solving this latter issue not only from the community (e.g. http://cran.at.r-project.org/web/views/HighPerformanceComputing.html), but also from the industry (e.g. Revolution Analytics), but I would prefer that at this stage this would be a standard feature of the language so the the “normal” user need not worry about it. But then this is a community effort and if I’m not happy with the current status instead of complaining I should do something about it!
Ajay- Describe your writing habit- How do you set about writing the book- did you write a fixed amount daily or do you write in bursts etc
Luis- Unfortunately, I write in bursts whenever I find some time for it. This is much more tiring and time consuming as I need to read back material far too often, but I cannot afford dedicating too much consecutive time to a single task. Actually, I frequently tease my PhD students when they “complain” about the lack of time for doing what they have to, that they should learn to appreciate the luxury of having a single task to complete because it will probably be the last time in their professional life!
Ajay- What do you do to relax or unwind when not working?
Luis- For me, the best way to relax from work is by playing sports. When I’m involved in some game I reset my mind and forget about all other things and this is very relaxing for me. A part from sports I enjoy a lot spending time with my family and friends. A good and long dinner with friends over a good bottle of wine can do miracles when I’m too stressed with work! Finally,I do love traveling around with my family.

Short Bio: Luis Torgo has a degree in Systems and Informatics Engineering and a PhD in Computer Science. He is an Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto. He is also a researcher of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analysis (LIAAD) belonging to INESC Porto LA. Luis Torgo has been an active researcher in Machine Learning and Data Mining for more than 20 years. He has lead several academic and industrial Data Mining research projects. Luis Torgo accompanies the R project almost since its beginning, using it on his research activities. He teaches R at different levels and has given several courses in different countries.
For reading “Data Mining with R” – you can visit this site, also to avail of a 20% discount the publishers have generously given (message below)-
For more information and to place an order, visit us at http://www.crcpress.com. Order online and apply 20% Off discount code 907HM at checkout. CRC is pleased to offer free standard shipping on all online orders!
link to the book page http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439810187
Cat. #: K10510
ISBN: 9781439810187
ISBN 10: 1439810184
Publication Date: November 09, 2010
Number of Pages: 305
Availability: In Stock
Binding(s): Hardback
Related Articles
- Finally! A practical R book on Data Mining: “Data Mining With R, Learning with Case Studies,” by Luis Torgo (r-bloggers.com)
- INFORMS Data Mining Competition leaders used Open Source software (r-bloggers.com)
- Is Data-Mining Free Speech? The Supreme Court Agrees to Decide a Crucial Case (dailyfinance.com)
- Mining of Massive Data Sets (kinlane.com)
- Case Study (jonathanlewis.wordpress.com)
- Statistical Aspects of Data Mining (kinlane.com)
- 5 of the Best Free and Open Source Data Mining Software (junauza.com)
- US top court to decide state drug data mining law (reuters.com)
- Data-mining Google Books: Does the Reader Have To Be Human? (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
- Data Mining Competitions | TunedIT (tunedit.org)
PAW Videos
A message from Predictive Analytics World on newly available videos. It has many free videos as well so you can check them out.
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Access PAW DC Session Videos Now Predictive Analytics World is pleased to announce on-demand access to the videos of PAW Washington DC, October 2010, including over 30 sessions and keynotes that you may view at your convenience. Access this leading predictive analytics content online now: View the PAW DC session videos online Register by January 18th and receive $150 off the full 2-day conference program videos (enter code PAW150 at checkout) Trial videos – view the following for no charge:
Select individual conference sessions, or recognize savings by registering for access to one or two full days of sessions. These on-demand videos deliver PAW DC right to your desk, covering hot topics and advanced methods such as:
PAW DC videos feature over 25 speakers with case studies from leading enterprises such as: CIBC, CEB, Forrester, Macy’s, MetLife, Microsoft, Miles Kimball, Monster.com, Oracle, Paychex, SunTrust, Target, UPMC, Xerox, Yahoo!, YMCA, and more. How video access works:
Sign up by January 18 for immediate video access and $150 discount |
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Related Articles
Interesting R competition at Reddit
Here is an interesting R competition going on at Reddit and it is to help Reddit make a recommendation engine
http://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/dtg4j/want_to_help_reddit_build_a_recommender_a_public/
by ketralnis
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- Blackhat SEO ‘cheats’ Reddit (go.theregister.com)
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- BaconBits, A BitTorrent Tracker for Redditors Only (torrentfreak.com)
- Designing algorithmis for Map Reduce (horicky.blogspot.com)
PAW Reception and R Meetup
New DC meetup for R Users-
source- http://www.meetup.com/R-users-DC/calendar/14236478/
October’s R meet-up will be co-located with the Predictive Analytics World Conference (http://www.predictive…) taking place in Washington DC October 19-20. PAW is the premiere business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners.
Agenda:
6:30 – 7:30 PAW Reception (open to meet-up attendees)
7:30 – 9:00 DC-R Meetup
Talks:
“How to speak ggplot2 like a native”
Harlan D. Harris, PhD @HarlanH
“Saving the world with R”
Michael Milton @michaelmilton
Important Registration Instructions:
You are welcome to RSVP here at meetup. The PAW organizers have requested that we register in the PAW site for the R meetup so they can provide badges to members which will give you access to the reception. There is no charge to register using the PAW site. Please click here to register.
Harlan D. Harris, PhD, is a statistical data scientist working for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions in New York City. He has degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to turning to the private sector, he worked as a researcher and lecturer in various areas of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science at the University of Illinois, Columbia University, the University of Connecticut, and New York University.
Harlan’s talk is titled “How to speak ggplot2 like a native.”. One of the most innovative ideas in data visualization in recent years is that graphical images can be described using a grammar. Just as a fluent speaker of a language can talk more precisely and clearly than someone using a tourist phrasebook, graphics based on a grammar can yield more insights than graphics based on a limited set of templates (bar chart, pie graph, etc.). There are at least two implementations of the Grammar of Graphics idea in R, of which the most popular is the ggplot2 package written by Prof. Hadley Wickham. Just as with natural languages, ggplot2 has a surface structure made up of R vocabulary elements, as well as a deep structure that mediates the link between the vocabulary and the “semantic” representation of the data shown on a computer screen. In this introductory presentation, the links among these levels of representation are demonstrated, so that new ggplot2 users can build the mental models necessary for fluent and creative visualization of their data.
Michael Milton is a Client Manager at Blue State Digital. When he’s not saving the world by designing interactive marketing strategies that connect passionate users with causes and organizations, he writes about data and analytics. For O’Reilly Media, he wrote Head First Data Analysis and Head First Excel and has created the videos Great R: Level 1 and Getting the Most Out of Google Apps for Business.
Michael’s talk is called “How to Save the World Using R.” In this wide-ranging discussion, Michael will highlight individuals and organizations who are using R to help others as well as ways in which R can be used to promote good statistical thinking.
Analytics and Journals
Some good journals for reading on analytics-
1) JSS
present research that demonstrates the joint evolution of computational and statistical methods and techniques. Implementations can use languages such as C, C++, S, Fortran, Java, PHP, Python and Ruby or environments such as Mathematica, MATLAB, R, S-PLUS, SAS, Stata, and XLISP-STAT.
There are currently 370 articles, 23 code snippets, 86 book reviews, 4 software reviews, and 7 special volumes in archives
2) R Journal
The
Journal
3) Pharma Programming
http://maney.co.uk/index.php/journals/pha/
Pharmaceutical Programming is the official journal of the Pharmaceutical Users Software Exchange (PhUSE), a non-profit membership society with the objective of educating programmers and their managers working in the pharmaceutical industry. Available both in print and online, Pharmaceutical Programming is an international journal with focus on programming in the regulated environment of the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry.
4) SAS Papers – User Groups
| 4569 SAS papers presented at SGF/SUGI 1996-2010. |
1343 SAS papers presented at PharmaSUG 2000-2010. |
1810 SAS papers presented at NESUG 1997-2009. |
| 1191 SAS papers presented at SESUG 1999-2009. |
463 SAS papers presented at PhUSE 2005-2009. |
787 SAS papers presented at WUSS 2003-2009. |
| 337 SAS papers presented at MWSUG 2001, 2004-2009. |
188 SAS papers presented at PNWSUG 2004-2009. |
246 SAS papers presented at SCSUG 2003-2007, 2009. |
| 221 SAS papers related to CDISC. Easy access to the CDISC Forum. |
5) http://analyticsmagazine.com/
Magazine by http://www.informs.org/
6) Data Mining Journals
Academic Journals
Journals relevant to Data Mining
- Applied Intelligence – The International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks, and Complex Problem-Solving Technologies -http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0924-669X/contents
- Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1384-5810/
- Journal of Intelligent Information Systems – Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Database Technologies -http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0925-9902
- Journal of Intelligent Systems - http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~hssrjis/
- Knowledge and Information Systems - http://springerlink.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=journal&issn=0219-1377
- Machine Learning - http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0885-6125/
- IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering - http://www.computer.org/tkde/
- IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence - http://www.computer.org/tpami/





























