Advanced Machine Learning Specialization

The goal of this course is to give learners basic understanding of modern neural networks and their applications in computer vision and natural language understanding. The course starts with a recap of linear models and discussion of stochastic optimization methods that are crucial for training deep neural networks. Learners will study all popular building blocks of neural networks including fully connected layers, convolutional and recurrent layers.

Learners will use these building blocks to define complex modern architectures in TensorFlow and Keras frameworks. In the course project learner will implement deep neural network for the task of image captioning which solves the problem of giving a text description for an input image. The prerequisites for this course are: 1) Basic knowledge of Python. 2) Basic linear algebra and probability. Please note that this is an advanced course and we assume basic knowledge of machine learning. You should understand: 1) Linear regression: mean squared error, analytical solution. 2) Logistic regression: model, cross-entropy loss, class probability estimation. 3) Gradient descent for linear models. Derivatives of MSE and cross-entropy loss functions. 4) The problem of overfitting. 5) Regularization for linear models. Do you have technical problems? Write to us: coursera@hse.ru

If you want to break into competitive data science, then this course is for you! Participating in predictive modelling competitions can help you gain practical experience, improve and harness your data modelling skills in various domains such as credit, insurance, marketing, natural language processing, sales’ forecasting and computer vision to name a few. At the same time you get to do it in a competitive context against thousands of participants where each one tries to build the most predictive algorithm. Pushing each other to the limit can result in better performance and smaller prediction errors. Being able to achieve high ranks consistently can help you accelerate your career in data science.

In this course, you will learn to analyse and solve competitively such predictive modelling tasks. When you finish this class, you will: - Understand how to solve predictive modelling competitions efficiently and learn which of the skills obtained can be applicable to real-world tasks. - Learn how to preprocess the data and generate new features from various sources such as text and images. - Be taught advanced feature engineering techniques like generating mean-encodings, using aggregated statistical measures or finding nearest neighbors as a means to improve your predictions. - Be able to form reliable cross validation methodologies that help you benchmark your solutions and avoid overfitting or underfitting when tested with unobserved (test) data. - Gain experience of analysing and interpreting the data. You will become aware of inconsistencies, high noise levels, errors and other data-related issues such as leakages and you will learn how to overcome them. - Acquire knowledge of different algorithms and learn how to efficiently tune their hyperparameters and achieve top performance. - Master the art of combining different machine learning models and learn how to ensemble. - Get exposed to past (winning) solutions and codes and learn how to read them. Disclaimer : This is not a machine learning course in the general sense. This course will teach you how to get high-rank solutions against thousands of competitors with focus on practical usage of machine learning methods rather than the theoretical underpinnings behind them. Prerequisites: - Python: work with DataFrames in pandas, plot figures in matplotlib, import and train models from scikit-learn, XGBoost, LightGBM. - Machine Learning: basic understanding of linear models, K-NN, random forest, gradient boosting and neural networks. Do you have technical problems? Write to us: coursera@hse.ru

People apply Bayesian methods in many areas: from game development to drug discovery. They give superpowers to many machine learning algorithms: handling missing data, extracting much more information from small datasets. Bayesian methods also allow us to estimate uncertainty in predictions, which is a desirable feature for fields like medicine.

When applied to deep learning, Bayesian methods allow you to compress your models a hundred folds, and automatically tune hyperparameters, saving your time and money. In six weeks we will discuss the basics of Bayesian methods: from how to define a probabilistic model to how to make predictions from it. We will see how one can automate this workflow and how to speed it up using some advanced techniques. We will also see applications of Bayesian methods to deep learning and how to generate new images with it. We will see how new drugs that cure severe diseases be found with Bayesian methods. Do you have technical problems? Write to us: coursera@hse.ru

Welcome to the Reinforcement Learning course.

Here you will find out about: - foundations of RL methods: value/policy iteration, q-learning, policy gradient, etc. --- with math & batteries included - using deep neural networks for RL tasks --- also known as "the hype train" - state of the art RL algorithms --- and how to apply duct tape to them for practical problems. - and, of course, teaching your neural network to play games --- because that's what everyone thinks RL is about. We'll also use it for seq2seq and contextual bandits. Jump in. It's gonna be fun! Do you have technical problems? Write to us: coursera@hse.ru