Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human

Development
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

KMK2233: Artificial Neural Networks

Homework 1


Prepared by : Lim Yong Hui 36747
Prepared for : Dr. Syafiq Lee Nung Kiong
Date of Submission : 6
th
March 2013

Homework 1
1. Find 4 definitions of machine learning techniques from books or journal
articles (not webpages wiki or blogs). Cite each source that you use. Compare
and contrast those definitions to identify their differences and similarities.
There are 4 different definitions of machine learning techniques:
a. According to Witten and Frank (2005), machine learning is one of the bases in
data mining which used to learn from information extracted from a set of raw data
in databases whereby the information that is expressed in a comprehensible form
and multipurpose uses.
b. According to van Leeuwen (2004), machine learning is used to design programs
that learn and/or discover such as able to improve their performance on certain
task automatically and/or able to adapt to changes over time.
c. According to Mitchell (2006), a machine learns with respects to a particular task
T, performance metric P, and type of experience E, if the system reliably
improves its performance P at task T, following experience E.
d. According to Hall (1999), machine learning is the study of algorithms that can
improve their performance with experience automatically, whereby the algorithm
is that presented with data that exemplifies a task which improves its ability to
predict key elements of the task can be said have learned.
From the definitions, it can be said that machine learning is the study to learn and
discover which can improves the performance on certain tasks with experience
automatically. However, what make the definitions differ from each other are their
perspectives on machine learning. First definitions view is on data mining which
machine learning can through data mining. Besides, in second definition, a machine
learns through programs and able to adapt to changes by itself. Meanwhile in third
definition, 3 components which are task, performance and experience are important when
a machine learns. Last definition defines machine learning in terms of learning
algorithms which the machine can predict key elements after it learned.

2. Describe in not more than 100 words why we need machine learning
techniques?
The reason we need machine learning techniques is because the machine learning
techniques help us to solve increasingly complex problems and become more integrated
into our daily lives. Its applications like speech recognition, computer vision, bio-
surveillance, robotics and data mining have eased our life a lot. For example, in
handwriting recognition in daily life is hard to detected and recognized by human being.
Therefore, to solve this problem only can be done by using machine learning. Machine
learning applications also can help us in filtering spam in emails and photo tagging
application.

3. Give an example of problem where machine learning is needed? Your
answer should not be those had been discussed in class.
An example where machine learning is needed is speech recognition. Speech recognition
done by machine is more accurate and greater than human that attempts to program it by
hand if the machine system is trained. This can be seen when there are a lot of available
commercial systems are using machine systems to recognize speech. In these commercial
speech recognition systems, it involves two distinct learning phases: before the software
is shipped where it is trained in a speaker-independent fashion and after the user
purchases the software as it can achieve more accuracy by training in a speaker-
dependent fashion.





References
Hall, M. A. (1999). Correlation-based feature selection for machine learning(Doctoral
dissertation, The University of Waikato).
Mitchell, T. M. (2006). The discipline of machine learning. Carnegie Mellon University,
School of Computer Science, Machine Learning Department.
Witten, I., H. & Frank, E. (2005). Data mining: Practical machine learning tools and
techniques (2nd ed.). San Francisco, California: Elsevier Inc.
van Leeuwen, J. (2004). Approaches in machine learning. In Algorithms in Ambient
Intelligence (pp. 151-166). Springer Netherlands.