Total suggested work for this week

2 hours lectures, 2 hours self-study, 2 hour book reading and video watching, 2 hours computer lab session, 2 hours paper and pencil tutorial, 4 hours work on mini-project. Total 14 hours.

Before you start...

We prepared a self-assessment quiz with true-false statements from previous exams about important concepts of week 3. The quiz does not count towards the final grades and can be repeated multiple times. Note, however, that it does not cover everything that you should know about the topics of week 3.

4.0 Mini-project

The mini-project is now in full swing. You should have implemented your method and started writing down details of your approach. If you have questions regarding the mini-project, write in the discussion forum.

4.1 Lecture

We end course week 4 (Friday 12th February 10:15) with the theory needed for this section.

Updated lecture notes for this year available here. With notes here. This years lecture below.

4.2 Videos and reading

You should read sections 7.1 - 7.3 (and reread 2.3) of the SML book this week.

The following video goes through the basics of decision trees.

Same here for bagging:

and boosting:

4.3 Pen and paper session

Start this work after the lecture. Spend about two hours attempting the questions before the tutorial on Tuesday the 16th of February.

The exercise sheet is available here.

Recommended problems: 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4

This will be covered at the tutorial on Tuesday 16th of February 13:15-15:00. Also feel free to ask questions in the discussion section.

4.4 Computer lab session

Start this work after lecture. Spend about two hours attempting the questions before the computer lab on Tuesday 16th of February. Note that the pencil and paper and the computer lab are on the same day!

The computer labs are available here:

Recommended problems: 8.1, 8.2
Additional problems: 8.3

Suggested solutions are available here.

Also feel free to ask questions in the discussion section and the drop-in session on Wednesday 17th at 15:15-17:00.

4.5 I want to hear music created by a random forest model

This article explains how a random forest model can be used to learn melodies in music and produce new music.

4.6 I want to know more about boosting.

While we cover the basics boosting in the lectures, we do not have a lab on it this year. However, it can be a useful technique for those of you looking to improve your approach in the mini-project.

Computer labs for boosting are available here:

Recommended problems: 9.1, 9.2, 9.3
Additional problems: 9.4, 9.5

Suggested solutions are available here.