Prerequisite

CSIS-210: Data Structures or Sufficient Programming Background, especially with arrays

Required Text

None

Required Software (free)

• Octave: https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

Course Learning Goals

1. To expose students to concepts and methods in machine learning.
2. To enhance the student's problem-solving abilities for data intense problems.
3. To further develop the student's ability to develop programming solutions, in particular, programs that can learn from data.
4. To give students a basic set of machine learning tools applicable to a variety of problems.
To teach students critical analysis of machine learning approaches so that the student can determine when a particular technique is applicable to a given problem.

Topics

For a complete list of topic covered see the Course Schedule

• Basic Linear Algebra
• Supervised vs. Unsupervised Learning
• Linear, Polynomials and Logistical Regression
• Gradient Descent & the Normal Equation
• Learning Rate, Normalization & Regularization
• Classification & Representation
• The Problem of Overfitting
• Neural Networks & Non-linear Hypotheses
• Support Vector Machines: Large Margin Classification & Kernels
• Clustering, K-Mean Algorithm
• Principal Component Analysis
• Anomaly Detection
• Dealing with Large Data Sets

Course Details & Grading Weights

Grading

Letter grades will be assigned based on your numeric final average:

A	>= 93.0	A-	>= 90.0	B+	>= 87.0
B	>= 83.0	B-	>= 80.0	C+	>= 77.0
C	>= 73.0	C-	>= 70.0	D+	>= 67.0
D	>= 63.0	D-	>= 60.0	F	< 60.0

Lecture Attendance

A student is expected to attend every lecture. It is the student's responsibility to be aware of this policy. Students can receive up to a 10% penalty toward their final average for excessive absence, lateness, or disruption during lecture. Students will be given a warning if they are more than 2 minutes late to lecture. After a warning, subsequent lateness will be recorded. Students who are more than 10 minutes late will be marked absent and penalties will be incurred. Students can have two unexcused absence and two lateness warnings without any penalty. But after two, students will receive a 1% penalty for each unexcused absence and a 0.5% penalty for each unexcused lateness (maximum of 10% total penalty).

Excused Absences

Lecture:

Students can be excused (and not penalized) from lecture for illnesses, job interviews, and serious commitments such as athletic or academic trips/competitions. However, students must inform the instructor as soon as possible, provide proof/documentation, and take responsibility to acquire notes and information from other students. The following rules will be strictly enforced:

• Practices (athletics), regularly scheduled extra curricular activities, and weekly obligations in other courses will NOT be considered a valid excuses for missing lecture. Students should not register for this class if such activities conflict with the scheduled meeting time.
• Traveling to athletic games that are documented by the Athletic Department are a valid excuse. However, if you are going to miss more than four lectures due to games, it is recommended that you drop the course.
• For illness or medical emergencies, students WILL have to show documentation (a doctor's note, release form, receipt or equivalent) that verifies the excuse. If an illness is not serious enough to go to a doctor then it is not serious enough to be accepted by the instructor.
• For family emergencies, funerals, or other serious commitments, students should contact the office of Student Affair or Academic Affairs. If the emergency is serious, ask an authorized school official to contact all your instructors regarding your absence. If an excuse is not serious enough to contact an authorized school official then the excuse is not serious enough to be accepted by the instructor.

The instructor makes the final decision to excuse or not to excuse an absence. If you are concerned that an absence will not be excused, you should contact the instructor as soon as possible.

Pandemic/Emergency Preparedness

• Students are instructed to bring all texts and a copy of the syllabus/course schedule home with you in the event of a College Closure. The Academic Calendar will be adjusted upon Reopening; so be prepared for the possibility of a short mini-semester; rescheduled class/exam period; and /or rescheduling of the semester, depending on the length of the Closure.
• If your situation permits, you should continue with readings and assignments to the best of your ability, per the course schedule.
• You will be given instructions regarding how to deal with paper assignments requiring library or other required research by me, as needed.
• Online office hours will be used by me in order to maintain contact with my students. You will be able to “check-in” with questions that you have. If you do not have internet access available, I will also provide my home phone number and home address, as needed. Remember, internet, mail delivery, and telephone services may also be impacted by a Pandemic or other emergency event.
• Finally, stay connected with information regarding the status of the College’s status and Reopening schedule by monitoring the Siena web site, www.siena.edu.

College Policies

• Academic integrity policy
• Accommodations policy
• Emergency preparedness
• Attendance policy
• Cell phone use

Academic Integrity

Exams:

Students caught cheating on an exam, will receive a zero on the exam, will be penalized a full letter-grade in the course, and a letter describing the student's actions will be sent to Siena's Vice President of Academic Affairs. During an exam period, students cannot share information, look at each other's tests, or use unauthorized materials. Unless specific clarification is given, exams are closed-book, closed-notes, there are no cheat sheets allowed, and electronic device usage is prohibited.

Plagiarism on Code:

It is very easy to copy code from other sources and claim it as your own. This is academically dishonest and considered plagiarism. Students who present other authors' code, documents, or programs as their own will receive a grade of zero on the entire project or lab. Students who commit plagiarism a second time will again receive a zero, but will also be penalized a full letter-grade in the course and a letter describing the student's violation will be sent to Siena's Vice President of Academic Affairs. Use the following guidelines to avoid code plagiarism: