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Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms 1st Edition
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- ISBN-101107057132
- ISBN-13978-1107057135
- Edition1st
- PublisherCambridge University Press
- Publication dateMay 19, 2014
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7 x 0.94 x 10 inches
- Print length410 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Bernhard Schölkopf, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
"This is a timely text on the mathematical foundations of machine learning, providing a treatment that is both deep and broad, not only rigorous but also with intuition and insight. It presents a wide range of classic, fundamental algorithmic and analysis techniques as well as cutting-edge research directions. This is a great book for anyone interested in the mathematical and computational underpinnings of this important and fascinating field."
Avrim Blum, Carnegie Mellon University
"This text gives a clear and broadly accessible view of the most important ideas in the area of full information decision problems. Written by two key contributors to the theoretical foundations in this area, it covers the range from theoretical foundations to algorithms, at a level appropriate for an advanced undergraduate course."
Peter L. Bartlett, University of California, Berkeley
Book Description
About the Author
Shai Ben-David is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Product details
- Publisher : Cambridge University Press; 1st edition (May 19, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 410 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1107057132
- ISBN-13 : 978-1107057135
- Item Weight : 2.01 pounds
- Dimensions : 7 x 0.94 x 10 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #134,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19 in Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition
- #414 in Computer Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on March 2, 2021
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I'm enjoying the book. It reads like a textbook that one might find at a university, and has exercises and notes for the order you'd go through it while teaching a class. I find it well-written and for the most part, easy to digest--a bit heavy on the math for what I was looking for, but you can skim over it for the ideas.
Is amazon authorized to sell this Edition to USA customers.
Do not know any difference in edition content
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 2, 2021
Is amazon authorized to sell this Edition to USA customers.
Do not know any difference in edition content
Overall, the book is very nice for an introductory class in machine learning for an advanced undergraduate level class. Can also be used for a graduate level class but some other materials should be covered that are not included in this book.
What I especially like about this book is that it gives a good theoretical background, before jumping into the algorithms.
When getting to the algorithms the author show how to use the theoretical tools to analyze them, which is great !
Also, the theoretical part was enough for me to further read and understand more recent theoretical ML research papers.
That is a great feeling ! I wholeheartedly recommend this great book for graduates.
by introducing students to formal broad conceptual frameworks for understanding, comparing, analyzing,
and designing large classes of popular machine learning algorithms. These frameworks are explicitly presented
as mathematical theorems but the authors are careful about explaining the underlying assumptions of key theorems and
interpreting the conclusions of such theorems. Richard M. Golden.
Top reviews from other countries
The book provides an elegant and lucid treatment of the most important result in the area of Statistical Learning Theory (SLT) along with a theoretically grounded explanation of the most common learning paradigms and algorithms. Authors made an effort of highlight and in formulating clearly, the key results in SLT enabling the reader to fix in mind the few key ideas. An examples of this is the discussion in 6.4 about the fundamental theorem of Learning Theory whose statement is separated in a qualitative and a quantitive version.
Another feature of the book that I really appreciated is the that before presenting the proof of a results, the authors explained the key ideas allowing the reader to understand the proof techniques. I think this important for everyone who aims in doing research in SLT.
Problems ranges from honing skill exercises to more involved one, however their solutions rarely requires more than what explained in the book. With this respect, the material is self-contained.
Comparing this book with a similar but shorter book, 'Learning from Data' by Mustafa et al. I think the former is more complete and general covering a number of additional topics as dimensionality reduction, feature selection, clustering, a short intro to online learning and also more advanced theoretical concepts as Radamacher Complexities and PAC Bayes to mention a few. Furthermore, the latter does not cover the important topic of Structural Risk Minimization.
A book with a similar coverage is 'Foundations of Machine Learning' by Mohri et al. , however I definitively prefer Understanding Machine Learning for the adoption of a consistent notation and the clarity of the mathematical arguments.
The theory section is a little heavy on notation if you don't have a mathematical background, but the actual mathematics employed is generally at a science undergraduate level, so don't let that put you off. Also, they go to great lengths to explain the intuition behind the ideas. However, the ideas are quite abstract and it's easy to wonder whether it's really practical and worth understanding. Have faith, because when you get to the algorithm sections you will have some powerful tools to understand them better.
If you're tired of ML books that are little more than lists of algorithm recipes, give this book a try. It requires some serious investment in thought but it will pay you back handsomely.
I love the content, however I was expecting colour, not sure if the the author had a say.
I recommend just getting the pdf copy









