About Machine and Statistical Learning

What is statistical and machine learning?

Learning from data refers to the process of drawing conclusions from data. The conclusions may refer to simple facts such as the mean and variance of the data or may be more complex tasks such as:
  1. Predicting one variable given anther
  2. Reducing the data dimensionality to a more manageable and meaningful size
  3. Figuring out effective courses of action, for example stock market investing or chess playing
  4. Discovering rules or patterns in data, for example shopping patterns of customers.
The process of learning can be accomplished by humans, in which case we refer to it as human learning, or by computers in which case we call it machine learning. Statistical learning refers to the process of learning from data using statistical principles such as maximum likelihood, hypothesis testing, Bayesian analysis, etc.

What is the relation between statistical and machine learning and other fields such as statistics and computer science?

Statistical and machine learning is closely related to other fields. It uses mathematical principles developed in probability theory and statistical theory. Since it is typically accomplished using a computer it is closely related to computer science as well. In particular, analyzing large or high dimensional datasets requires careful application of computing theory. The field of artificial intelligence is closely related to statistical and machine learning but does not share its heavy emphasis of data analysis. Information retrieval and computer vision often have a significant statistical and machine learning components but are specifically focused on text and image data respectively. Datamining is yet another name for data analysis but is often used to emphasize a database, rather than a statistical, perspective.

What are the related activities and research at Purdue?

Research in statistical and machine learning at Purdue spans several departments including statistics, computer science, and electrical and computer engineering. Faculty and students perform research in a variety of application areas as well as the underlying theory. A list of faculty and students may be found here and a list of events may be found here. A weekly seminar and reading group in machine learning may be found here.