How do E-commerce websites like Amazon make recommendations based on your past purchase history? How does the photo tagging application in Facebook and Apple work? What are the algorithms behind Gmail's spam filter and credit card companies' fraud detection models? Machine Learning (ML) is a powerful subset of Artificial Intelligence that enables computers to "learn" and detect patterns in existing data and make meaningful predictions. ML develops algorithms that are closely related to data mining and analysis tools in statistics. This course will cover the basic ideas in Machine Learning and its applications in various fields. Topics such as supervised/unsupervised learning and classification trees will be discussed.

A view of several important topics of Chinese culture through Chinese films. The topics include Beijing Opera, Kung-fu, ancient Chinese philosophy, etc. The films will include the works of famous Chinese directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Ann Lee and Chen Kaige. (Clips of films will be shown in class.)