A Concise Introduction to Machine Learning

Often, in teaching machine learning, the emphasis is on the questions of "what" and "how," and the question of "why" is often neglected. This book emphasizes the "why." Only when we understand why an algorithm is successful, can it be properly applied, and the results trusted. Algorithms are often taught side-by-side without showing the similarities and differences between them. A Concise Introduction to Machine Learning addresses the commonalities, and aims to give a thorough and in-depth treatment and develop intuition, while remaining concise. This book could serve as a reference for anyone employing machine learning techniques.

MATLAB is used to solve examples throughout the book, with some examples using functions from Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox. In addition, companion code is available on the author's personal website.