10-601B Perceptrons and Large Margin

This a lecture used in the Syllabus for Machine Learning 10-601B in Spring 2016

Readings

• My notes on the voted perceptron. (You can skip sections 3-4 on ranking and the structured perceptron).
• Optional reading: Freund, Yoav, and Robert E. Schapire. "Large margin classification using the perceptron algorithm." Machine learning 37.3 (1999): 277-296.
• Optional background on linear algebra: Zico Kolter's linear algebra review lectures

What You Should Know Afterward

• The difference between an on-line and batch algorithm.
• The perceptron algorithm.
• The importance of margins in machine learning.
• The definitions of, and intuitions behind, these concepts:
  • The margin of a classifier relative to a dataset.
  • What a constrained optimization problem is.
  • The primal form of the SVM optimization problem.
  • What slack variables are and why and when they are used in SVMs.
• How to explain the different parts (constraints, optimization criteria) of the primal and dual forms for the SVM.
• How the perceptron and SVM are similar and different.