This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Genetic Programming, EuroGP 2015, held in Copenhagen, Spain, in April 2015 co-located with the Evo 2015 events, EvoCOP, Evo MUSART and Evo Applications. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 6 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected form 36 submissions. The wide range of topics in this volume reflects the current state of research in the field. Thus, we see topics as diverse as semantic methods, recursive programs, grammatical methods, coevolution, Cartesian GP, feature selection, initialisation procedures, ensemble methods and search objectives; and applications including text processing, cryptography, numerical modelling, software parallelisation, creation and optimisation of circuits, multi-class classification, scheduling and artificial intelligence.

Designing algorithms to recommend items such as news articles and movies to users is a challenging task in numerous web applications. The crux of the problem is to rank items based on users' responses to different items to optimize for multiple objectives. Major technical challenges are high dimensional prediction with sparse data and constructing high dimensional sequential designs to collect data for user modeling and system design. This comprehensive treatment of the statistical issues that arise in recommender systems includes detailed, in-depth discussions of current state-of-the-art methods such as adaptive sequential designs (multi-armed bandit methods), bilinear random-effects models (matrix factorization) and scalable model fitting using modern computing paradigms like MapReduce. The authors draw upon their vast experience working with such large-scale systems at Yahoo! and LinkedIn, and bridge the gap between theory and practice by illustrating complex concepts with examples from applications they are directly involved with.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Simulated Evolution and Learning, SEAL 2012, held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in December 2014. The 42 full papers and 29 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 109 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on evolutionary optimization; evolutionary multi-objective optimization; evolutionary machine learning; theoretical developments; evolutionary feature reduction; evolutionary scheduling and combinatorial optimization; real world applications and evolutionary image analysis.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Advanced Machine Learning Technologies and Applications, AMLTA 2014, held in Cairo, Egypt, in November 2014. The 49 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 101 initial submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on machine learning in Arabic text recognition and assistive technology; recommendation systems for cloud services; machine learning in watermarking/authentication and virtual machines; features extraction and classification; rough/fuzzy sets and applications; fuzzy multi-criteria decision making; Web-based application and case-based reasoning construction; social networks and big data sets.

The work presents new approaches to Machine Learning for Cyber Physical Systems, experiences and visions. It contains some selected papers from the international Conference ML4CPS - Machine Learning for Cyber Physical Systems, which was held in Lemgo, October 1-2, 2015. Cyber Physical Systems are characterized by their ability to adapt and to learn: They analyze their environment and, based on observations, they learn patterns, correlations and predictive models. Typical applications are condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, image processing and diagnosis. Machine Learning is the key technology for these developments.

Machine learning, one of the top emerging sciences, has an extremely broad range of applications. However, many books on the subject provide only a theoretical approach, making it difficult for a newcomer to grasp the subject material. This book provides a more practical approach by explaining the concepts of machine learning algorithms and describing the areas of application for each algorithm, using simple practical examples to demonstrate each algorithm and showing how different issues related to these algorithms are applied.

This three-volume set LNAI 8724, 8725 and 8726 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: ECML PKDD 2014, held in Nancy, France, in September 2014. The 115 revised research papers presented together with 13 demo track papers, 10 nectar track papers, 8 PhD track papers, and 9 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 550 submissions. The papers cover the latest high-quality interdisciplinary research results in all areas related to machine learning and knowledge discovery in databases.

This book presents fundamental topics and algorithms that form the core of machine learning (ML) research, as well as emerging paradigms in intelligent system design. The multidisciplinary nature of machine learning makes it a very fascinating and popular area for research. The book is aiming at students, practitioners and researchers and captures the diversity and richness of the field of machine learning and intelligent systems. Several chapters are devoted to computational learning models such as granular computing, rough sets and fuzzy sets An account of applications of well-known learning methods in biometrics, computational stylistics, multi-agent systems, spam classification including an extremely well-written survey on Bayesian networks shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of the methods. Practical studies yielding insight into challenging problems such as learning from incomplete and imbalanced data, pattern recognition of stochastic episodic events and on-line mining of non-stationary data streams are a key part of this book.

Data-driven discovery is revolutionizing the modeling, prediction, and control of complex systems. This textbook brings together machine learning, engineering mathematics, and mathematical physics to integrate modeling and control of dynamical systems with modern methods in data science. It highlights many of the recent advances in scientific computing that enable data-driven methods to be applied to a diverse range of complex systems, such as turbulence, the brain, climate, epidemiology, finance, robotics, and autonomy. Aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in the engineering and physical sciences, the text presents a range of topics and methods from introductory to state of the art.

Machine learning is concerned with the analysis of large data and multiple variables. However, it is also often more sensitive than traditional statistical methods to analyze small data. The first volume reviewed subjects like optimal scaling, neural networks, factor analysis, partial least squares, discriminant analysis, canonical analysis, and fuzzy modeling. This second volume includes various clustering models, support vector machines, Bayesian networks, discrete wavelet analysis, genetic programming, association rule learning, anomaly detection, correspondence analysis, and other subjects. Both the theoretical bases and the step by step analyses are described for the benefit of non-mathematical readers. Each chapter can be studied without the need to consult other chapters. Traditional statistical tests are, sometimes, priors to machine learning methods, and they are also, sometimes, used as contrast tests. To those wishing to obtain more knowledge of them, we recommend to additionally study (1) Statistics Applied to Clinical Studies 5th Edition 2012, (2) SPSS for Starters Part One and Two 2012, and (3) Statistical Analysis of Clinical Data on a Pocket Calculator Part One and Two 2012, written by the same authors, and edited by Springer, New York.

Manipulating or grasping objects seems like a trivial task for humans, as these are motor skills of everyday life. Nevertheless, motor skills are not easy to learn for humans and this is also an active research topic in robotics. However, most solutions are optimized for industrial applications and, thus, few are plausible explanations for human learning. The fundamental challenge, that motivates Patrick Stalph, originates from the cognitive science: How do humans learn their motor skills? The author makes a connection between robotics and cognitive sciences by analyzing motor skill learning using implementations that could be found in the human brain - at least to some extent. Therefore three suitable machine learning algorithms are selected - algorithms that are plausible from a cognitive viewpoint and feasible for the roboticist. The power and scalability of those algorithms is evaluated in theoretical simulations and more realistic scenarios with the iCub humanoid robot. Convincing results confirm the applicability of the approach, while the biological plausibility is discussed in retrospect.

Processing multimedia content has emerged as a key area for the application of machine learning techniques, where the objectives are to provide insight into the domain from which the data is drawn, and to organize that data and improve the performance of the processes manipulating it. Arising from the EU MUSCLE network, this multidisciplinary book provides a comprehensive coverage of the most important machine learning techniques used and their application in this domain.

Data analysis, machine learning and knowledge discovery are research areas at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics and statistics. They cover general methods and techniques that can be applied to a vast set of applications such as web and text mining, marketing, medicine, bioinformatics and business intelligence. This volume contains the revised versions of selected papers in the field of data analysis, machine learning and knowledge discovery presented during the 36th annual conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl). The conference was held at the University of Hildesheim (Germany) in August 2012.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Machine Learning and Cybernetics, Lanzhou, China, in July 2014. The 45 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 421 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on classification and semi-supervised learning; clustering and kernel; application to recognition; sampling and big data; application to detection; decision tree learning; learning and adaptation; similarity and decision making; learning with uncertainty; improved learning algorithms and applications.

Decision trees and decision rule systems are widely used in different applications as algorithms for problem solving, as predictors, and as a way for knowledge representation. Reducts play key role in the problem of attribute (feature) selection. The aims of this book are (i) the consideration of the sets of decision trees, rules and reducts; (ii) study of relationships among these objects; (iii) design of algorithms for construction of trees, rules and reducts; and (iv) obtaining bounds on their complexity. Applications for supervised machine learning, discrete optimization, analysis of acyclic programs, fault diagnosis, and pattern recognition are considered also. This is a mixture of research monograph and lecture notes. It contains many unpublished results. However, proofs are carefully selected to be understandable for students. The results considered in this book can be useful for researchers in machine learning, data mining and knowledge discovery, especially for those who are working in rough set theory, test theory and logical analysis of data. The book can be used in the creation of courses for graduate students.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning, IDEAL 2014, held in Salamanca, Spain, in September 2014. The 60 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from about 120 submissions. These papers provided a valuable collection of recent research outcomes in data engineering and automated learning, from methodologies, frameworks, and techniques to applications. In addition the conference provided a good sample of current topics from methodologies, frameworks, and techniques to applications and case studies. The techniques include computational intelligence, big data analytics, social media techniques, multi-objective optimization, regression, classification, clustering, biological data processing, text processing, and image/video analysis.

This three-volume set LNAI 8724, 8725 and 8726 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: ECML PKDD 2014, held in Nancy, France, in September 2014. The 115 revised research papers presented together with 13 demo track papers, 10 nectar track papers, 8 PhD track papers, and 9 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 550 submissions. The papers cover the latest high-quality interdisciplinary research results in all areas related to machine learning and knowledge discovery in databases.

Computer vision is the science and technology of making machines that see. It is concerned with the theory, design and implementation of algorithms that can automatically process visual data to recognize objects, track and recover their shape and spatial layout. The International Computer Vision Summer School - ICVSS was established in 2007 to provide both an objective and clear overview and an in-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art research in Computer Vision. The courses are delivered by world renowned experts in the field, from both academia and industry, and cover both theoretical and practical aspects of real Computer Vision problems. The school is organized every year by University of Cambridge (Computer Vision and Robotics Group) and University of Catania (Image Processing Lab). Different topics are covered each year. A summary of the past Computer Vision Summer Schools can be found at: http://www.dmi.unict.it/icvss This edited volume contains a selection of articles covering some of the talks and tutorials held during the last editions of the school. The chapters provide an in-depth overview of challenging areas with key references to the existing literature.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition, MLDM 2014, held in St. Petersburg, Russia in July 2014. The 40 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 128 submissions. The topics range from theoretical topics for classification, clustering, association rule and pattern mining to specific data mining methods for the different multimedia data types such as image mining, text mining, video mining and Web mining.

Reinforcement learning is a mathematical framework for developing computer agents that can learn an optimal behavior by relating generic reward signals with its past actions. With numerous successful applications in business intelligence, plant control, and gaming, the RL framework is ideal for decision making in unknown environments with large amounts of data. Supplying an up-to-date and accessible introduction to the field, Statistical Reinforcement Learning: Modern Machine Learning Approaches presents fundamental concepts and practical algorithms of statistical reinforcement learning from the modern machine learning viewpoint. It covers various types of RL approaches, including model-based and model-free approaches, policy iteration, and policy search methods. Covers the range of reinforcement learning algorithms from a modern perspective Lays out the associated optimization problems for each reinforcement learning scenario covered Provides thought-provoking statistical treatment of reinforcement learning algorithms The book covers approaches recently introduced in the data mining and machine learning fields to provide a systematic bridge between RL and data mining/machine learning researchers. It presents state-of-the-art results, including dimensionality reduction in RL and risk-sensitive RL. Numerous illustrative examples are included to help readers understand the intuition and usefulness of reinforcement learning techniques. This book is an ideal resource for graduate-level students in computer science and applied statistics programs, as well as researchers and engineers in related fields.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Genetic Programming, EuroGP 2013, held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2013 co-located with the Evo* 2013 events, EvoMUSART, EvoCOP, EvoBIO, and EvoApplications.
The 18 revised full papers presented together with 5 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The wide range of topics in this volume reflects the current state of research in the field, including different genres of GP (tree-based, linear, grammar-based, Cartesian), theory, novel operators, and applications.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Simulated Evolution and Learning, SEAL 2012, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in December 2012. The 50 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 91 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on evolutionary algorithms, theoretical developments, swarm intelligence, data mining, learning methodologies, and real-world applications.

Comprehensive Coverage of the Entire Area of ClassificationResearch on the problem of classification tends to be fragmented across such areas as pattern recognition, database, data mining, and machine learning. Addressing the work of these different communities in a unified way, Data Classification: Algorithms and Applications explores the underlying algorithms of classification as well as applications of classification in a variety of problem domains, including text, multimedia, social network, and biological data. This comprehensive book focuses on three primary aspects of data classification: Methods: The book first describes common techniques used for classification, including probabilistic methods, decision trees, rule-based methods, instance-based methods, support vector machine methods, and neural networks. Domains: The book then examines specific methods used for data domains such as multimedia, text, time-series, network, discrete sequence, and uncertain data. It also covers large data sets and data streams due to the recent importance of the big data paradigm. Variations: The book concludes with insight on variations of the classification process. It discusses ensembles, rare-class learning, distance function learning, active learning, visual learning, transfer learning, and semi-supervised learning as well as evaluation aspects of classifiers.

The ability to learn is one of the most fundamental attributes of intelligent behavior. Consequently, progress in the theory and computer modeling of learn ing processes is of great significance to fields concerned with understanding in telligence. Such fields include cognitive science, artificial intelligence, infor mation science, pattern recognition, psychology, education, epistemology, philosophy, and related disciplines. The recent observance of the silver anniversary of artificial intelligence has been heralded by a surge of interest in machine learning-both in building models of human learning and in understanding how machines might be endowed with the ability to learn. This renewed interest has spawned many new research projects and resulted in an increase in related scientific activities. In the summer of 1980, the First Machine Learning Workshop was held at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In the same year, three consecutive issues of the Inter national Journal of Policy Analysis and Information Systems were specially devoted to machine learning (No. 2, 3 and 4, 1980). In the spring of 1981, a special issue of the SIGART Newsletter No. 76 reviewed current research projects in the field. . This book contains tutorial overviews and research papers representative of contemporary trends in the area of machine learning as viewed from an artificial intelligence perspective. As the first available text on this subject, it is intended to fulfill several needs."

Professor Richard S. Michalski passed away on September 20, 2007. Once we learned about his untimely death we immediately realized that we would no longer have with us a truly exceptional scholar and researcher who for several decades had been inf- encing the work of numerous scientists all over the world - not only in his area of exp- tise, notably machine learning, but also in the broadly understood areas of data analysis, data mining, knowledge discovery and many others. In fact, his influence was even much broader due to his creative vision, integrity, scientific excellence and excepti- ally wide intellectual horizons which extended to history, political science and arts. Professor Michalski's death was a particularly deep loss to the whole Polish sci- tific community and the Polish Academy of Sciences in particular. After graduation, he began his research career at the Institute of Automatic Control, Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. In 1970 he left his native country and hold various prestigious positions at top US universities. His research gained impetus and he soon established himself as a world authority in his areas of interest - notably, he was widely cons- ered a father of machine learning.