An Introduction to Support Vector Machines and Other Kernel-based Learning Methods
Author(s): Nello Cristianini (Author), John Shawe-Taylor (Author)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 23 Mar. 2000
Edition: Illustrated
Language: English
Print length: 204 pages
ISBN-10: 0521780195
ISBN-13: 9780521780193
Book Description
This is the first comprehensive introduction to Support Vector Machines (SVMs), a generation learning system based on recent advances in statistical learning theory. SVMs deliver state-of-the-art performance in real-world applications such as text categorisation, hand-written character recognition, image classification, biosequences analysis, etc., and are now established as one of the standard tools for machine learning and data mining. Students will find the book both stimulating and accessible, while practitioners will be guided smoothly through the material required for a good grasp of the theory and its applications. The concepts are introduced gradually in accessible and self-contained stages, while the presentation is rigorous and thorough. Pointers to relevant literature and web sites containing software ensure that it forms an ideal starting point for further study. Equally, the book and its associated web site will guide practitioners to updated literature, new applications, and on-line software.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon Review
This slim book is an excellent introduction to an exciting new field–the design and implementation of important new mathematical models as the optimising strategy for learning machines. The text deals clearly with both the concepts and the practical details of these models, and consistently steers away from the more speculative side of learning machines. At the same time, the authors never fail to communicate the wonder and excitement of working with the raw stuff of knowledge and impart a spark of intelligence to mechanisms.
An Introduction to Support Vector Machines is manifestly a text book, and as such leads the reader as a student through the concepts, history and implementation of kernel-based learning strategies, with plenty of pseudo-code examples, discussion and exercise questions (without answers), and the best modern bibliography of the subject available. The appendix attempts to summarise the background mathematics. It’s thorough, accurate and useful as a reference: but it is not a tutorial, and may leave the novice reader with little training in set dynamics none the wiser. A well-rounded reader will sail through the intriguing first chapter, which discusses learning machines and techniques for teaching a machine (or computer program) to generalise. However chapter two, with its impenetrable conversation about “linear classification” replete with sigma notation and diagrams of “hyperplanes” may well discourage further reading. Excellent though this book is, the title is deceptive: it is indeed an “introduction”–but requires a fair background knowledge of automata and set theory.–Wilf Hey
Review
‘… the most accessible introduction to the area I have yet seen’. D. J. Hand, Publication of the International Statistical Institute
‘The book is an admirable presentation of this powerful new approach to pattern classification.’ Alex M. Andrew, Robotica
‘ … an excellent book, complete and readable without big requirements in mathematical functional analysis.’ Zentralblatt für Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete Mathematics Abstracts
Book Description
This is a comprehensive introduction to Support Vector Machines, a generation learning system based on advances in statistical learning theory.
From the Author
Introduction to Support Vector Machines (SVMs) This book is the first comprehensive introduction to Support Vector Machines (SVMs), a new generation learning system based on recent advances in statistical learning theory. The book also introduces Bayesian analysis of learning and relates SVMs to Gaussian Processes and other kernel based learning methods.
SVMs deliver state-of-the-art performance in real-world applications such as text categorisation, hand-written character recognition, image classification, biosequences analysis, etc. Their first introduction in the early 1990s lead to a recent explosion of applications and deepening theoretical analysis, that has now established Support Vector Machines along with neural networks as one of the standard tools for machine learning and data mining.
Students will find the book both stimulating and accessible, while practitioners will be guided smoothly through the material required for a good grasp of the theory and application of these techniques. The concepts are introduced gradually in accessible and self-contained stages, though in each stage the presentation is rigorous and thorough.
Pointers to relevant literature and web sites containing software ensure that it forms an ideal starting point for further study. Equally the book will equip the practitioner to apply the techniques and an associated web site will provide pointers to updated literature, new applications, and on-line software.
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