Posted in 2014
Statistics and machine learning
- 13 August 2014
Below are some introductory texts for probability, statistics, machine learning and statistical learning theory. They are sorted roughly according to difficulty, so you can find a book that is suitable for where you are and what you need.
Boltzmann machines and hierarchical models
- 02 August 2014
The restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) is a key statistical model used in deep learning. They are special form of Boltzmann machines where the underlying graph is a bipartite graph. Personally, I am more interested in Boltzmann machines because they represent a class of discrete energy models where the energy is quadratic. The dynamics of the model bears a lot of resemblance to those of Hopfield networks and Ising models. As an aside, normal distributions are continuous energy models where the energy is quadratic and positive definite.