Nicolas - Scala for Machine Learning - 2014

Key Features

• Explore a broad variety of data processing, machine learning, and genetic algorithms through diagrams, mathematical formulation, and updated source code in Scala
  
• Take your expertise in Scala programming to the next level by creating and customizing AI applications
  
• Experiment with different techniques and evaluate their benefits and limitations using real-world applications in a tutorial style
  

Book
The discovery of information through data clustering and classification is becoming a key differentiator for competitive organizations. Machine learning applications are everywhere, from self-driving cars, engineering design, logistics, manufacturing, and trading strategies, to detection of genetic anomalies.
The book is your one stop guide that introduces you to the functional capabilities of the Scala programming language that are critical to the creation of machine learning algorithms such as dependency injection and implicits. You start by learning data preprocessing and filtering techniques. Following this, you'll move on to unsupervised learning techniques such as clustering and dimension reduction, followed by probabilistic graphical models such as Naive Bayes, hidden Markov models and Monte Carlo inference. Further, it covers the discriminative algorithms such as linear, logistic regression with regularization, kernelization, support vector machines, neural networks, and deep learning. You'll move on to evolutionary computing, multibandit algorithms, and reinforcement learning.
Finally, the book includes a comprehensive overview of parallel computing in Scala and Akka followed by a description of Apache Spark and its ML library. With updated codes based on the latest version of Scala and comprehensive examples, this book will ensure that you have more than just a solid fundamental knowledge in machine learning with Scala.

What you will learn

• Build dynamic workflows for scientific computing
  
• Leverage open source libraries to extract patterns from time series
  
• Write your own classification, clustering, or evolutionary algorithm
  
• Perform relative performance tuning and evaluation of Spark
  
• Master probabilistic models for sequential data
  
• Experiment with advanced techniques such as regularization and kernelization
  
• Dive into neural networks and some deep learning architecture
  
• Apply some basic multiarm-bandit algorithms
  
• Solve big data problems with Scala parallel collections, Akka actors, and Apache Spark clusters
  
• Apply key learning strategies to a technical analysis of financial markets
  

About the Author
Patrick R. Nicolas is the director of engineering at Agile SDE, California. He has more than 25 years of experience in software engineering and building applications in C++, Java, and more recently in Scala/Spark, and has held several managerial positions. His interests include real-time analytics, modeling, and the development of nonlinear models.

Table of Contents

• Getting Started
  
• Data pipeline
  
• Data pre-processing
  
• Clustering
  
• Dimension reduction
  
• Naive Bayes Classifiers
  
• Sequential data models
  
• Monte Carlo Inference
  
• Regression and Regularization
  
• Multi-layer perceptron
  
• Deep learning
  
• Kernel models & support vector machines
  
• Evolutionary computing
  
• Multi-arm bandits
  
• Reinforcement learning
  
• Parallelism in Scala and Akka
  
• Apache Spark
  
• Appendix Basic concepts
  
• References