Book Image

Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms - Second Edition

By : Giuseppe Bonaccorso
Book Image

Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms - Second Edition

By: Giuseppe Bonaccorso

Overview of this book

Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms, Second Edition helps you harness the real power of machine learning algorithms in order to implement smarter ways of meeting today's overwhelming data needs. This newly updated and revised guide will help you master algorithms used widely in semi-supervised learning, reinforcement learning, supervised learning, and unsupervised learning domains. You will use all the modern libraries from the Python ecosystem – including NumPy and Keras – to extract features from varied complexities of data. Ranging from Bayesian models to the Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to Hidden Markov models, this machine learning book teaches you how to extract features from your dataset, perform complex dimensionality reduction, and train supervised and semi-supervised models by making use of Python-based libraries such as scikit-learn. You will also discover practical applications for complex techniques such as maximum likelihood estimation, Hebbian learning, and ensemble learning, and how to use TensorFlow 2.x to train effective deep neural networks. By the end of this book, you will be ready to implement and solve end-to-end machine learning problems and use case scenarios.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
26
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27
Index

Fundamental concepts of RL

Imagine that you want to learn to ride a bike, and ask a friend for advice. They explain how the gears work, how to release the brake and a few other technical details. In the end, you ask the secret to keeping your balance.

What kind of answer do you expect? In an imaginary supervised world, you should be able to perfectly quantify your actions and correct errors by comparing the outcomes with precise reference values. In the real world, you have no idea about the quantities underlying your actions and, above all, you will never know what the right value is.

Increasing the level of abstraction, the scenario we're considering can be described as: a generic agent performs actions inside an environment and receives feedback that is somehow proportional to the competence of its actions. According to this Feedback, the Agent can correct its actions in order to reach a specific goal. This basic schema is represented in the following diagram:

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