Machine Learning

Abstract

Machine learning techniques have been successfully applied to several real world problems in areas as diverse as image analysis, Semantic Web, bioinformatics, text processing, natural language processing,telecommunications, finance, medical diagnosis, and so forth. A particular application where machine learning plays a key role is data mining, where machine learning techniques have been extensively used for the extraction of association, clustering, prediction, diagnosis, and regression models. This text presents our personal view of the main aspects, major tasks, frequently used algorithms, current research, and future directions of machine learning research. For such, it is organized as follows: Background information concerning machine learning is presented in the second section. The third section discusses different definitions for Machine Learning. Common tasks faced by Machine Learning Systems are described in the fourth section. Popular Machine Learning algorithms and the importance of the loss function are commented on in the fifth section. The sixth and seventh sections present the current trends and future research directions, respectively.