96791 - Probabilistic Methods for Machine Learning

Academic Year 2023/2024

  • Moduli: Stefano Pagliarani (Modulo 1) Giovanni Paolini (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Mathematics (cod. 8010)

    Also valid for Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Mathematics (cod. 5827)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the students are familiar with the classical mathematical pillars of machine learning, including probabilistic aspects of advanced models such as neural networks and stochastic optimization algorithms for their training.

Course contents

- Introduction to machine learning. Regression and classification problems. Supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning. Overfitting and regularization.

- Foundations of information theory.

- Linear models for supervised learning. Support Vector Machine (SVM).

- Unsupervised learning: clustering, latent models, matrix factorization.

- Probabilistic models.

- Neural networks, backpropagation, stochastic gradient descent.

- Deep learning, convolutional networks, transformer.

- Selection of advanced topics: diffusion models, large language models, AlphaGo, AlphaTensor.

 

Readings/Bibliography

- Christopher Bishop, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

- Aston Zhang, Zack C. Lipton, Mu Li, Alex J. Smola, Dive into Deep Learning

Teaching methods

- Frontal lectures on the board and/or with slides.

- Coding and simulation activities in the laboratory.

 

Assessment methods

Oral examination and, possibly, presentation of one or more projects.

Teaching tools

- Office hours and tutoring. 

- PDF lecture notes covering some parts of the program.

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Pagliarani

See the website of Giovanni Paolini