This is the SECOND in a series of posts on applying Tim Ferriss' accelerated learning framework to Data Science. My goal is to become a world-class (top 5%) Data Scientist in 6 months, while open-sourcing everything I find and learn along the way. And if you stick around until the end, you're in for a special treat. A simple Google search of "how to learn Data Science" returns thousands of learning plans, degree programs, tutorials, and bootcamps. It's never been more difficult for a beginner to find signal in the noise. Everyone seems to have a different opinion, and the only common approach appears to be dumping a long list of courses to take and books to read, all the while providing little to no context into how these concepts fit into the bigger picture.

Existing simulations designed for cultural and interpersonal skill training rely on pre-defined responses with a menu option selection interface. Using a multiple-choice interface and restricting trainees' responses may limit the trainees' ability to apply the lessons in real life situations. This systems also uses a simplistic evaluation model, where trainees' selected options are marked as either correct or incorrect. This model may not capture sufficient information that could drive an adaptive feedback mechanism to improve trainees' cultural awareness. This paper describes the design of a dialogue-based simulation for cultural awareness training. The simulation, built around a disaster management scenario involving a joint coalition between the US and the Chinese armies. Trainees were able to engage in realistic dialogue with the Chinese agent. Their responses, at different points, get evaluated by different multi-label classification models. Based on training on our dataset, the models score the trainees' responses for cultural awareness in the Chinese culture. Trainees also get feedback that informs the cultural appropriateness of their responses. The result of this work showed the following; i) A feature-based evaluation model improves the design, modeling and computation of dialogue-based training simulation systems; ii) Output from current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems gave comparable end results compared with the output from manual transcription; iii) A multi-label classification model trained as a cultural expert gave results which were comparable with scores assigned by human annotators.

We study small-loss bounds for the adversarial multi-armed bandits problem with graph feedback, that is, adaptive regret bounds that depend on the loss of the best arm or related quantities, instead of the total number of rounds. We derive the first small-loss bound for general strongly observable graphs, resolving an open problem proposed in (Lykouris et al., 2018). Specifically, we develop an algorithm with regret $\mathcal{\tilde{O}}(\sqrt{\kappa L_*})$ where $\kappa$ is the clique partition number and $L_*$ is the loss of the best arm, and for the special case where every arm has a self-loop, we improve the regret to $\mathcal{\tilde{O}}(\min\{\sqrt{\alpha T}, \sqrt{\kappa L_*}\})$ where $\alpha \leq \kappa$ is the independence number. Our results significantly improve and extend those by Lykouris et al. (2018) who only consider self-aware undirected graphs. Furthermore, we also take the first attempt at deriving small-loss bounds for weakly observable graphs. We first prove that no typical small-loss bounds are achievable in this case, and then propose algorithms with alternative small-loss bounds in terms of the loss of some specific subset of arms. A surprising side result is that $\mathcal{\tilde{O}}(\sqrt{T})$ regret is achievable even for weakly observable graphs as long as the best arm has a self-loop. Our algorithms are based on the Online Mirror Descent framework but require a suite of novel techniques that might be of independent interest. Moreover, all our algorithms can be made parameter-free without the knowledge of the environment.

We consider an adversarial variant of the classic $K$-armed linear contextual bandit problem where the sequence of loss functions associated with each arm are allowed to change without restriction over time. Under the assumption that the $d$-dimensional contexts are generated i.i.d.~at random from a known distributions, we develop computationally efficient algorithms based on the classic Exp3 algorithm. Our first algorithm, RealLinExp3, is shown to achieve a regret guarantee of $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{KdT})$ over $T$ rounds, which matches the best available bound for this problem. Our second algorithm, RobustLinExp3, is shown to be robust to misspecification, in that it achieves a regret bound of $\widetilde{O}((Kd)^{1/3}T^{2/3}) + \varepsilon \sqrt{d} T$ if the true reward function is linear up to an additive nonlinear error uniformly bounded in absolute value by $\varepsilon$. To our knowledge, our performance guarantees constitute the very first results on this problem setting.

Item Response Theory is a ubiquitous algorithm used around the world to understand humans based on their responses to questions in fields as diverse as education, medicine and psychology. However, for medium to large datasets, contemporary solutions pose a tradeoff: either have bayesian, interpretable, accurate estimates or have fast computation. We introduce variational inference and deep generative models to Item Response Theory to offer the best of both worlds. The resulting algorithm is (a) orders of magnitude faster when inferring on the classical model, (b) naturally extends to more complicated input than binary correct/incorrect, and more expressive deep bayesian models of responses. Applying this method to five large-scale item response datasets from cognitive science and education, we find improvements in imputing missing data and better log likelihoods. The open-source algorithm is immediately usable.

A Bayesian network is a graphical model that encodes probabilistic relationships among variables of interest. When used in conjunction with statistical techniques, the graphical model has several advantages for data analysis. One, because the model encodes dependencies among all variables, it readily handles situations where some data entries are missing. Two, a Bayesian network can be used to learn causal relationships, and hence can be used to gain understanding about a problem domain and to predict the consequences of intervention. Three, because the model has both a causal and probabilistic semantics, it is an ideal representation for combining prior knowledge (which often comes in causal form) and data. Four, Bayesian statistical methods in conjunction with Bayesian networks offer an efficient and principled approach for avoiding the overfitting of data. In this paper, we discuss methods for constructing Bayesian networks from prior knowledge and summarize Bayesian statistical methods for using data to improve these models. With regard to the latter task, we describe methods for learning both the parameters and structure of a Bayesian network, including techniques for learning with incomplete data. In addition, we relate Bayesian-network methods for learning to techniques for supervised and unsupervised learning. We illustrate the graphical-modeling approach using a real-world case study.

Digital transformation is affecting manufacturing and engineering industries across global markets. Institutions, companies and professionals are adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a rapid rate to create efficiencies, new products and services and respond to market dynamics. AI technologies hold the promise of creating smarter, safer, efficient and more secure systems. AI is being developed on quantum computers and on multiple distributed edge nodes, while systems are becoming more responsive in thinking, perceiving and acting within time performance constraints. IISE's one-day symposium "AI: Impact on Industrial and Systems Engineering" is the perfect vehicle to start gathering the tools and knowledge needed to explore the impact Artificial Intelligence will have on industrial and systems engineers and the businesses/enterprises they manage.

Want to learn more about how you can use machine learning for education within your organization? Attend ODSC East 2020 and learn from those who have made it happen. AI and Machine Learning are doing wonders in school education already. In their recent report, the Wall Street Journal covered the current effects of AI and Machine Learning on education in China. China's achievements in implementing AI and Machine Learning in education are incredible: Teachers, who were interviewed by the WSJ, unanimously support these innovations, saying that the implementation of AI in school education makes students more diligent and improves their academic performance.

LOUISVILLE – Even after Kentucky High School Athletic Association Commissioner Julian Tackett sent out an email notifying school officials that esports teams may not participate in the video game "Fortnite," there was nothing to be done among schools here. That's because "Fortnite," an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017, was never included among the games played by Kentucky students in high school competitions. "Fortnite" is a third-person shooter game that doesn't include any blood, injuries or dead bodies, but nevertheless was given a Teen rating for violence by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Epic Games and PlayVS, a software company that provides a platform for competitive esports, last week announced last Wednesday a partnership to introduce a competitive league for "Fortnite" across high schools and colleges. "There is no place for shooter games in our schools," Tackett said, adding that the KHSAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations had no knowledge that "Fortnite" was being added as part of the competition platform and are "strongly against it."

How to create an API for machine learning. Let's dive into data science with python and learn how we can create our own API (Application Programming Interface) where we can send data to and let our model return a prediction. This course is a practical hands on course where we learn to deploy our trained machine learning models aka neural networks with the flask web framework. This is a beginners class. You don't need any pre-knowlege about flask but you should know about neural networks and python.