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Degree Regulations & Programmes of Study 2010/2011
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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Informatics : Informatics

Postgraduate Course: Reinforcement Learning (INFR11010)

Course Outline
School School of Informatics College College of Science and Engineering
Course type Standard Availability Available to all students
Credit level (Normal year taken) SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) Credits 10
Home subject area Informatics Other subject area None
Course website http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/rl
Course description This module covers a range of adaptive learning systems, in particular reinforcement learning and unsupervised methods, particularly as used in RL systems. By the end of the module the student should have a grasp of modern learning techniques and the issues involved in dealing with real-world data. The main techniques covered in the course are basic reinforcement learning, dynamic programming, Monte Carlo methods, Q-learning, function approximation, unsupervised and constructive methods, radial basis and other local functions, classifier systems as compared to RL systems.
Entry Requirements
Pre-requisites Co-requisites It is RECOMMENDED that students also take Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming (INFU11068)
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements For Informatics PG and final year MInf students only, or by special permission of the School. Students should be familiar with the mathematical concepts therein, particularly vectors and matrices, partial differentiation, and some probability.
Additional Costs None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites None
Prospectus website http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/visiting-exchange/courses
Course Delivery Information
Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1) WebCT enabled:  No Quota:  None
Location Activity Description Weeks Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
CentralLecture1-11 16:10 - 17:00
CentralLecture1-11 16:10 - 17:00
First Class Week 1, Monday, 16:10 - 17:00, Zone: Central. Room 2.12, Appleton Tower
Delivery period: 2010/11 Semester 1, Part-year visiting students only (VV1) WebCT enabled:  No Quota:  None
Location Activity Description Weeks Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
CentralLecture1-11 16:10 - 17:00
CentralLecture1-11 16:10 - 17:00
First Class Week 1, Monday, 16:10 - 17:00, Zone: Central. Room 2.12, Appleton Tower
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
1 - Knowledge of basic and advanced reinforcement learning techniques.
2 - Insight into the problems involved in applying these techniques to deal with real world data, and how to overcome those problems.
3 - Appreciation and identification of suitable learning tasks to which these learning techniques can be applied
4 - Ability to evaluate how effective a particular learning procedure has been -- internal indicators of learning success vs. actual behaviour of the learner.
5 - Use and writing of Matlab programs, ability to set up and run computational experiments to produce statistically sound results
6 - Formulation of problems, evaluation of results from the student's own experiments and those presented in some cases in the research literature.
Assessment Information
Written Examination 80
Assessed Assignments 20
Oral Presentations 0

Assessment
Two assignments are set, each accounting for 10% of the overall mark. Typically they require programming a learning system or experimenting with an existing system, using MATLAB.

If delivered in semester 1, this course will have an option for semester 1 only visiting undergraduate students, providing assessment prior to the end of the calendar year.
Please see Visiting Student Prospectus website for Visiting Student Assessment information
Special Arrangements
Not entered
Contacts
Course organiser Dr Michael Rovatsos
Tel: (0131 6)51 3263
Email: mrovatso@inf.ed.ac.uk
Course secretary Miss Kate Weston
Tel: (0131 6)50 2701
Email: Kate.Weston@ed.ac.uk
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copyright 2010 The University of Edinburgh - 1 September 2010 6:10 am