COURSE UNIT: NEURO NETWORK

CODE : TEE
Lecturer: MASESE CHUMA-
CONTACT: 0701260004/0725999196
Objective
By the end of this session, students will be able to:
i. Discuss the concepts of MACHINE LEARNING
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WHAT IS MACHINE LEARNING?
Machine Learning is the field of study that gives computers the capability to learn without being explicitly
programmed. ML is one of the most exciting technologies that one would have ever come across. As it is
evident from the name, it gives the computer that makes it more similar to humans: The ability to learn.
Machine learning is actively being used today, perhaps in many more places than one would expect.
What is Machine Learning?

Quest for Machine Learning

It has been the quest of computer scientists from the earliest days to discover whether computers can learn.

What are the benefits?

• Learning from medical records which treatments are most effective for new diseases Homes or office
buildings learning to optimize energy costs based on the particular usage patterns of the occupants
• Personal software assistants learning the evolving interests of their users in order to highlight relevant
information on websites visited
• Discovering new knowledge hidden in massive datasets
• And so on...

This vision is now a reality

Here are several definitions from various authors:

• Machine learning is about extracting knowledge from the data. It can be defined as,
Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence, which enables machines to learn from past
data or experiences without being explicitly programmed.
• Machine learning is the science (and art) of programming computers so that they can learn from data.
• Machine learning is the field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly
programmed. (Arthur Samuel, 1959)
• A good start at a Machine Learning definition is that it is a core sub-area of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
ML applications learn from experience (well data) like humans without direct programming. When
 exposed to new data, these applications learn, grow, change, and develop by themselves. In other
words, with Machine Learning, computers find insightful information without being told where to
look. Instead, they do this by leveraging algorithms that learn from data in an iterative process.

Example: Spam Filter

A spam filter learns to flag spam given examples of spam emails flagged by users and nonspam (also called
ham).

The examples that the system uses to learn are called the training set.

Each training example is called a training instance (or sample).

In this case, the task T is to flag spam for new emails, the experience E is the training data, and the performance
measure P needs to be defined.

You can use the ratio of correctly classified emails as your P. This particular performance measure is called
accuracy.

• A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some
performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E. (Tom
Mitchell, 1997)

Another Example:

• The heavily hyped, self-driving Google car? The essence of machine learning.
• Online recommendation offers such as those from Amazon and Netflix? Machine learning applications for
everyday life.
• Knowing what customers are saying about you on Twitter? Machine learning combined with linguistic rule
creation.
• Fraud detection? One of the more obvious, important uses in our world today.
How Does Machine Learning Work?
Machine Learning is, undoubtedly, one of the most exciting subsets of Artificial Intelligence. It completes the
task of learning from data with specific inputs to the machine. It’s important to understand what makes
Machine Learning work and, thus, how it can be used in the future.

The Machine Learning process starts with inputting training data into the selected algorithm. Training data
being known or unknown data to develop the final Machine Learning algorithm. The type of training data
input does impact the algorithm, and that concept will be covered further momentarily.

To test whether this algorithm works correctly, new input data is fed into the Machine Learning algorithm.
The prediction and results are then checked.
If the prediction is not as expected, the algorithm is re-trained multiple numbers of times until the desired
output is found. This enables the Machine Learning algorithm to continually learn on its own and produce the
most optimal answer that will gradually increase in accuracy over time.

Traditional approach

Machine Learning Approach

The ML program will be much shorter, easier to maintain, and more accurate.

How machine Learning works

Consider how you would write a spam filter using traditional programming techniques.

First, you would look at what spam typically looks like.

You might notice that some words or phrases (such as "4U", "credit card", "free" and "amazing") tend to come
up a lot in the subject.

Perhaps you would also notice a few other patterns in the sender's name and the email's body.
You would write a detection algorithm for each pattern that you noticed, and your program would flag emails
as spam if a number of these patterns are detected.

You would test your program, and repeat steps 1 and 2 until it is good enough

Benefits of Machine Learning

• Problems for which existing solutions require a lot of hand-tuning or long lists of rules: one machine
learning algorithms can often simplify code and perform better.
• Complex problems for which there is no good solution at all using a traditional approach: the best
machine learning techniques can find a solution.
• Fluctuating environments: a machine learning system can adapt to new data.
• Getting insights about complex problems and large amounts of data.

Features of Machine Learning

• Machine learning is a data-driven technology. A large amount of data is generated by organizations
daily, enabling them to identify notable relationships and make better decisions.
• Machines can learn from past data and automatically improve their performance.
• Given a dataset, ML can detect various patterns in the data.
• For large organizations, branding is crucial, and targeting a relatable customer base becomes easier.
• It is similar to data mining, as both deal with substantial amounts of data.

Applications of Machine learning

Machine learning is a buzzword for today's technology, and it is growing very rapidly day by day. We are
using machine learning in our daily life even without knowing it such as Google Maps, Google assistant,
Alexa, etc. Below are some most trending real-world applications of Machine Learning:
1. Image Recognition:

Image recognition is one of the most common applications of machine learning. It is used to identify objects,
persons, places, digital images, etc. The popular use case of image recognition and face detection
is, Automatic friend tagging suggestion:

Facebook provides us a feature of auto friend tagging suggestion. Whenever we upload a photo with our
Facebook friends, then we automatically get a tagging suggestion with name, and the technology behind this
is machine learning's face detection and recognition algorithm.

It is based on the Facebook project named "Deep Face," which is responsible for face recognition and person
identification in the picture.

2. Speech Recognition

While using Google, we get an option of "Search by voice," it comes under speech recognition, and it's a
popular application of machine learning.

Speech recognition is a process of converting voice instructions into text, and it is also known as "Speech to
text", or "Computer speech recognition." At present, machine learning algorithms are widely used by
various applications of speech recognition. Google assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Alexa are using speech
recognition technology to follow the voice instructions.

3. Traffic prediction:

If we want to visit a new place, we take help of Google Maps, which shows us the correct path with the shortest
route and predicts the traffic conditions.

It predicts the traffic conditions such as whether traffic is cleared, slow-moving, or heavily congested with the
help of two ways:

o Real Time location of the vehicle form Google Map app and sensors
o Average time has taken on past days at the same time.

Everyone who is using Google Map is helping this app to make it better. It takes information from the user
and sends back to its database to improve the performance.

4. Product recommendations:

Machine learning is widely used by various e-commerce and entertainment companies such
as Amazon, Netflix, etc., for product recommendation to the user. Whenever we search for some product on
Amazon, then we started getting an advertisement for the same product while internet surfing on the same
browser and this is because of machine learning.

Google understands the user interest using various machine learning algorithms and suggests the product as
per customer interest.

As similar, when we use Netflix, we find some recommendations for entertainment series, movies, etc., and
this is also done with the help of machine learning.

5. Self-driving cars:

One of the most exciting applications of machine learning is self-driving cars. Machine learning plays a
significant role in self-driving cars. Tesla, the most popular car manufacturing company is working on self-
driving car. It is using unsupervised learning method to train the car models to detect people and objects while
driving.

6. Email Spam and Malware Filtering:

Whenever we receive a new email, it is filtered automatically as important, normal, and spam. We always
receive an important mail in our inbox with the important symbol and spam emails in our spam box, and the
technology behind this is Machine learning. Below are some spam filters used by Gmail:

o Content Filter
o Header filter
o General blacklists filter
o Rules-based filters
o Permission filters

Some machine learning algorithms such as Multi-Layer Perceptron, Decision tree, and Naïve Bayes
classifier are used for email spam filtering and malware detection.

7. Virtual Personal Assistant:

We have various virtual personal assistants such as Google assistant, Alexa, Cortana, Siri. As the name
suggests, they help us in finding the information using our voice instruction. These assistants can help us in
various ways just by our voice instructions such as Play music, call someone, open an email, Scheduling an
appointment, etc.
These virtual assistants use machine learning algorithms as an important part.

These assistants record our voice instructions, send it over the server on a cloud, and decode it using ML
algorithms and act accordingly.

8. Online Fraud Detection:

Machine learning is making our online transaction safe and secure by detecting fraud transaction. Whenever
we perform some online transaction, there may be various ways that a fraudulent transaction can take place
such as fake accounts, fake ids, and steal money in the middle of a transaction. So to detect this, Feed
Forward Neural network helps us by checking whether it is a genuine transaction or a fraud transaction.

For each genuine transaction, the output is converted into some hash values, and these values become the input
for the next round. For each genuine transaction, there is a specific pattern which gets change for the fraud
transaction hence, it detects it and makes our online transactions more secure.

9. Stock Market trading:

Machine learning is widely used in stock market trading. In the stock market, there is always a risk of up and
downs in shares, so for this machine learning's long short-term memory neural network is used for the
prediction of stock market trends.

10. Medical Diagnosis:

In medical science, machine learning is used for diseases diagnoses. With this, medical technology is growing
very fast and able to build 3D models that can predict the exact position of lesions in the brain.

It helps in finding brain tumors and other brain-related diseases easily.

11. Automatic Language Translation:

Nowadays, if we visit a new place and we are not aware of the language then it is not a problem at all, as for
this also machine learning helps us by converting the text into our known languages. Google's GNMT (Google
Neural Machine Translation) provide this feature, which is a Neural Machine Learning that translates the text
into our familiar language, and it called as automatic translation.

The technology behind the automatic translation is a sequence to sequence learning algorithm, which is used
with image recognition and translates the text from one language to another language.

Data and It’s Processing:

Data is the foundation of machine learning. The quality and quantity of data you have directly impact the
performance of your machine learning models. In this section, we will explore various aspects of data and
its processing, which are crucial for building robust ML systems.
Supervised learning:
Supervised learning is a fundamental approach in machine learning where models are trained on labeled
datasets. This technique is used to predict outcomes based on input features, making it invaluable for various
applications, from spam detection to medical diagnosis.
Unsupervised learning:
Unsupervised learning is a key area of machine learning that focuses on discovering hidden patterns and
structures in data without labeled outputs. Unlike supervised learning, where models learn from labeled
examples, unsupervised learning relies on the inherent structure of the input data.
Neural Networks:
Neural networks are a fundamental component of deep learning and a powerful tool for solving complex
problems in machine learning. Inspired by the human brain, neural networks consist of interconnected layers
of nodes (neurons) that work together to process data, learn patterns, and make predictions. This section
will cover the essential concepts, architectures, and applications of neural networks.

What is the difference between Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning?

Answer:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MACHINE LEARNING

Develop an intelligent system that perform variety Construct machines that can only accomplish the
of complex jobs. jobs for which they have trained.

The tasks systems machine takes data and learns

It works as a program that does smart work.
from data.

AI has broad variety of applications. ML allows systems to learn new things from data.

AI leads wisdom. ML leads to knowledge.

Advantages of Machine Learning
1. Improved Accuracy and Precision
One of the most significant benefits of machine learning is its ability to improve accuracy and precision in
various tasks. ML models can process vast amounts of data and identify patterns that might be overlooked
by humans. For instance, in medical diagnostics, ML algorithms can analyze medical images or patient data
to detect diseases with a high degree of accuracy.
2. Automation of Repetitive Tasks
Machine learning enables the automation of repetitive and mundane tasks, freeing up human resources for
more complex and creative endeavors. In industries like manufacturing and customer service, ML-driven
automation can handle routine tasks such as quality control, data entry, and customer inquiries, resulting in
increased productivity and efficiency.
3. Enhanced Decision-Making
ML models can analyze large datasets and provide insights that aid in decision-making. By identifying
trends, correlations, and anomalies, machine learning helps businesses and organizations make data-driven
decisions. This is particularly valuable in sectors like finance, where ML can be used for risk assessment,
fraud detection, and investment strategies.
4. Personalization and Customer Experience
Machine learning enables the personalization of products and services, enhancing customer experience. In
e-commerce, ML algorithms analyze customer behavior and preferences to recommend products tailored to
individual needs. Similarly, streaming services use ML to suggest content based on user viewing history,
improving user engagement and satisfaction.
5. Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics is a powerful application of machine learning that helps forecast future events based on
historical data. Businesses use predictive models to anticipate customer demand, optimize inventory, and
improve supply chain management. In healthcare, predictive analytics can identify potential outbreaks of
diseases and help in preventive measures.
6. Scalability
Machine learning models can handle large volumes of data and scale efficiently as data grows. This
scalability is essential for businesses dealing with big data, such as social media platforms and online
retailers. ML algorithms can process and analyze data in real-time, providing timely insights and responses.
7. Improved Security
ML enhances security measures by detecting and responding to threats in real-time. In cybersecurity, ML
algorithms analyze network traffic patterns to identify unusual activities indicative of cyberattacks.
Similarly, financial institutions use ML for fraud detection by monitoring transactions for suspicious
behavior.
8. Cost Reduction
By automating processes and improving efficiency, machine learning can lead to significant cost reductions.
In manufacturing, ML-driven predictive maintenance helps identify equipment issues before they become
costly failures, reducing downtime and maintenance costs. In customer service, chatbots powered by ML
reduce the need for human agents, lowering operational expenses.
9. Innovation and Competitive Advantage
Adopting machine learning fosters innovation and provides a competitive edge. Companies that leverage
ML for product development, marketing strategies, and customer insights are better positioned to respond
to market changes and meet customer demands. ML-driven innovation can lead to the creation of new
products and services, opening up new revenue streams.
10. Enhanced Human Capabilities
Machine learning augments human capabilities by providing tools and insights that enhance performance.
In fields like healthcare, ML assists doctors in diagnosing and treating patients more effectively. In research,
ML accelerates the discovery process by analyzing vast datasets and identifying potential breakthroughs.
Disadvantages of Machine Learning
1. Data Dependency
Machine learning models require vast amounts of data to train effectively. The quality, quantity, and
diversity of the data significantly impact the model’s performance. Insufficient or biased data can lead to
inaccurate predictions and poor decision-making. Additionally, obtaining and curating large datasets can be
time-consuming and costly.
2. High Computational Costs
Training ML models, especially deep learning algorithms, demands significant computational resources.
High-performance hardware such as GPUs and TPUs are often required, which can be expensive. The
energy consumption associated with training large models is also substantial, raising concerns about the
environmental impact.
3. Complexity and Interpretability
Many machine learning models, particularly deep neural networks, function as black boxes. Their
complexity makes it difficult to interpret how they arrive at specific decisions. This lack of transparency
poses challenges in fields where understanding the decision-making process is critical, such as healthcare
and finance.
4. Overfitting and Underfitting
Machine learning models can suffer from overfitting or underfitting. Overfitting occurs when a model learns
the training data too well, capturing noise and anomalies, which reduces its generalization ability to new
data. Underfitting happens when a model is too simple to capture the underlying patterns in the data, leading
to poor performance on both training and test data.
5. Ethical Concerns
ML applications can raise ethical issues, particularly concerning privacy and bias. Data privacy is a
significant concern, as ML models often require access to sensitive and personal information. Bias in
training data can lead to biased models, perpetuating existing inequalities and unfair treatment of certain
groups.
6. Lack of Generalization
Machine learning models are typically designed for specific tasks and may struggle to generalize across
different domains or datasets. Transfer learning techniques can mitigate this issue to some extent, but
developing models that perform well in diverse scenarios remains a challenge.
7. Dependency on Expertise
Developing and deploying machine learning models require specialized knowledge and expertise. This
includes understanding algorithms, data preprocessing, model training, and evaluation. The scarcity of
skilled professionals in the field can hinder the adoption and implementation of ML solutions.
8. Security Vulnerabilities
ML models are susceptible to adversarial attacks, where malicious actors manipulate input data to deceive
the model into making incorrect predictions. This vulnerability poses significant risks in critical applications
such as autonomous driving, cybersecurity, and financial fraud detection.
9. Maintenance and Updates
ML models require continuous monitoring, maintenance, and updates to ensure they remain accurate and
effective over time. Changes in the underlying data distribution, known as data drift, can degrade model
performance, necessitating frequent retraining and validation.
10. Legal and Regulatory Challenges
The deployment of ML applications often encounters legal and regulatory hurdles. Compliance with data
protection laws, such as GDPR, requires careful handling of user data. Additionally, the lack of clear
regulations specific to ML can create uncertainty and challenges for businesses and developers.
Conclusion
Machine learning is a powerful technology with the potential to revolutionize various industries. Its
advantages, such as automation, enhanced decision-making, personalization, scalability, and improved
security, make it an invaluable tool for modern businesses. However, it also presents challenges, including
data dependency, high computational costs, lack of transparency, potential for bias, and security
vulnerabilities. As machine learning continues to evolve, addressing these challenges will be crucial to
harnessing its full potential and ensuring its ethical and responsible use.
Components of Machine Learning
Machine learning involves several key components that work together to enable computers to learn from data
and make predictions or decisions. These components include:
1. Representation
Representation refers to how data is structured and presented to the machine learning algorithm. It
encompasses the format and organization of input data, as well as the features extracted from the data.
Effective representation is crucial for the algorithm to learn meaningful patterns and relationships within the
data.

2. Evaluation
Evaluation involves assessing the performance of machine learning models. It includes methods for measuring
how well a model generalizes to unseen data and how accurately it predicts outcomes. Evaluation metrics vary
depending on the specific task and objectives of the machine learning project. Common evaluation techniques
include cross-validation and holdout validation.

3. Optimization
Optimization is the process of refining and improving machine learning models to enhance their performance.
It involves adjusting model parameters or hyperparameters to minimize errors or maximize accuracy.
Optimization techniques aim to find the best possible model for a given task by iteratively adjusting the model
based on feedback from the evaluation process.

Common issues in Machine Learning

Although machine learning is being used in every industry and helps organizations make more informed and
data-driven choices that are more effective than classical methodologies, it still has so many problems that
cannot be ignored. Here are some common issues in Machine Learning that professionals face to inculcate
ML skills and create an application from scratch.

1. Inadequate Training Data

The major issue that comes while using machine learning algorithms is the lack of quality as well as quantity
of data. Although data plays a vital role in the processing of machine learning algorithms, many data scientists
claim that inadequate data, noisy data, and unclean data are extremely exhausting the machine learning
algorithms. For example, a simple task requires thousands of sample data, and an advanced task such as speech
or image recognition needs millions of sample data examples. Further, data quality is also important for the
algorithms to work ideally, but the absence of data quality is also found in Machine Learning applications.
Data quality can be affected by some factors as follows:
 o Noisy Data- It is responsible for an inaccurate prediction that affects the decision as well as accuracy
in classification tasks.
o Incorrect data- It is also responsible for faulty programming and results obtained in machine learning
models. Hence, incorrect data may affect the accuracy of the results also.
o Generalizing of output data- Sometimes, it is also found that generalizing output data becomes
complex, which results in comparatively poor future actions.

2. Poor quality of data

As we have discussed above, data plays a significant role in machine learning, and it must be of good quality
as well. Noisy data, incomplete data, inaccurate data, and unclean data lead to less accuracy in classification
and low-quality results. Hence, data quality can also be considered as a major common problem while
processing machine learning algorithms.

3. Non-representative training data

To make sure our training model is generalized well or not, we have to ensure that sample training data must
be representative of new cases that we need to generalize. The training data must cover all cases that are
already occurred as well as occurring.

Further, if we are using non-representative training data in the model, it results in less accurate predictions. A
machine learning model is said to be ideal if it predicts well for generalized cases and provides accurate
decisions. If there is less training data, then there will be a sampling noise in the model, called the non-
representative training set. It won't be accurate in predictions. To overcome this, it will be biased against one
class or a group.

Hence, we should use representative data in training to protect against being biased and make accurate
predictions without any drift.

4. Overfitting and Underfitting

Overfitting:

Overfitting is one of the most common issues faced by Machine Learning engineers and data scientists.
Whenever a machine learning model is trained with a huge amount of data, it starts capturing noise and
inaccurate data into the training data set. It negatively affects the performance of the model. Let's understand
with a simple example where we have a few training data sets such as 1000 mangoes, 1000 apples, 1000
bananas, and 5000 papayas. Then there is a considerable probability of identification of an apple as papaya
because we have a massive amount of biased data in the training data set; hence prediction got negatively
affected. The main reason behind overfitting is using non-linear methods used in machine learning algorithms
as they build non-realistic data models. We can overcome overfitting by using linear and parametric algorithms
in the machine learning models.
Methods to reduce overfitting:

o Increase training data in a dataset.

o Reduce model complexity by simplifying the model by selecting one with fewer parameters
o Ridge Regularization and Lasso Regularization
o Early stopping during the training phase
o Reduce the noise
o Reduce the number of attributes in training data.
o Constraining the model.

Underfitting:

Underfitting is just the opposite of overfitting. Whenever a machine learning model is trained with fewer
amounts of data, and as a result, it provides incomplete and inaccurate data and destroys the accuracy of the
machine learning model.

Underfitting occurs when our model is too simple to understand the base structure of the data, just like an
undersized pant. This generally happens when we have limited data into the data set, and we try to build a
linear model with non-linear data. In such scenarios, the complexity of the model destroys, and rules of the
machine learning model become too easy to be applied on this data set, and the model starts doing wrong
predictions as well.

Methods to reduce Underfitting:

o Increase model complexity

o Remove noise from the data
o Trained on increased and better features
o Reduce the constraints
o Increase the number of epochs to get better results.

5. Monitoring and maintenance

As we know that generalized output data is mandatory for any machine learning model; hence, regular
monitoring and maintenance become compulsory for the same. Different results for different actions require
data change; hence editing of codes as well as resources for monitoring them also become necessary.

6. Getting bad recommendations

A machine learning model operates under a specific context which results in bad recommendations and
concept drift in the model. Let's understand with an example where at a specific time customer is looking for
some gadgets, but now customer requirement changed over time but still machine learning model showing
same recommendations to the customer while customer expectation has been changed. This incident is called
a Data Drift. It generally occurs when new data is introduced or interpretation of data changes. However, we
can overcome this by regularly updating and monitoring data according to the expectations.

7. Lack of skilled resources

Although Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are continuously growing in the market, still these
industries are fresher in comparison to others. The absence of skilled resources in the form of manpower is
also an issue. Hence, we need manpower having in-depth knowledge of mathematics, science, and
technologies for developing and managing scientific substances for machine learning.

8. Customer Segmentation
Customer segmentation is also an important issue while developing a machine learning algorithm. To identify
the customers who paid for the recommendations shown by the model and who don't even check them. Hence,
an algorithm is necessary to recognize the customer behavior and trigger a relevant recommendation for the
user based on past experience.

9. Process Complexity of Machine Learning

The machine learning process is very complex, which is also another major issue faced by machine learning
engineers and data scientists. However, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are very new
technologies but are still in an experimental phase and continuously being changing over time. There is the
majority of hits and trial experiments; hence the probability of error is higher than expected. Further, it also
includes analyzing the data, removing data bias, training data, applying complex mathematical calculations,
etc., making the procedure more complicated and quite tedious.

10. Data Bias

Data Biasing is also found a big challenge in Machine Learning. These errors exist when certain elements of
the dataset are heavily weighted or need more importance than others. Biased data leads to inaccurate results,
skewed outcomes, and other analytical errors. However, we can resolve this error by determining where data
is actually biased in the dataset. Further, take necessary steps to reduce it.

Methods to remove Data Bias:

o Research more for customer segmentation.

o Be aware of your general use cases and potential outliers.
o Combine inputs from multiple sources to ensure data diversity.
o Include bias testing in the development process.
o Analyze data regularly and keep tracking errors to resolve them easily.
o Review the collected and annotated data.
 o Use multi-pass annotation such as sentiment analysis, content moderation, and intent recognition.

11. Lack of Explainability

This basically means the outputs cannot be easily comprehended as it is programmed in specific ways to
deliver for certain conditions. Hence, a lack of explain ability is also found in machine learning algorithms
which reduce the credibility of the algorithms.

12. Slow implementations and results

This issue is also very commonly seen in machine learning models. However, machine learning models are
highly efficient in producing accurate results but are time-consuming. Slow programming, excessive
requirements' and overloaded data take more time to provide accurate results than expected. This needs
continuous maintenance and monitoring of the model for delivering accurate results.

13. Irrelevant features

Although machine learning models are intended to give the best possible outcome, if we feed garbage data as
input, then the result will also be garbage. Hence, we should use relevant features in our training sample. A
machine learning model is said to be good if training data has a good set of features or less to no irrelevant
features.