AI/ML

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 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
1. Introduction to AI and ML
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Types of AI: Narrow AI vs.
General AI What is Machine
Learning (ML)?
Supervised vs. Unsupervised vs. Reinforcement
Learning Key Terminologies (Model, Feature,
Target, Algorithm)
Applications of AI and ML
Difference Between AI, ML, and Deep Learning (DL)

2.Mathematics for ML/AI

Linear Algebra
Vectors, Matrices, and
Tensors Matrix Operations
Eigenvalues and
Eigenvectors Probability
and Statistics
Mean, Variance, Standard
Deviation Bayes Theorem
Conditional Probability
Probability Distributions (Normal, Binomial,
Poisson) Calculus for Optimization
Derivatives and
Gradients Gradient
Descent

3.Data Preprocessing
Data Cleaning (Missing Values,
Outliers) Data Normalization and
Standardization
Encoding Categorical Variables (One-Hot Encoding, Label
Encoding) Feature Scaling (Min-Max, Z-score)
Feature Engineering (Polynomial Features, Binning)
Handling Imbalanced Data (SMOTE, Undersampling, Oversampling)

4. Supervised Learning Algorithms

Linear Regression
Simple vs. Multiple Linear Regression
Gradient Descent and Normal
Equation Regularization (L1, L2)
Logistic Regression
Binary vs. Multiclass Classification
Sigmoid Function and Cost
Function Regularization
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
4. Supervised Learning Algorithms
K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN)
Distance Metrics (Euclidean,
Manhattan) Choosing K
Advantages and
Disadvantages Support Vector
Machines (SVM)
Hyperplanes and Margins
Linear and Non-Linear
SVM Kernel Trick
Decision Trees
Gini Impurity and
Entropy Overfitting
and Pruning
Random Forest

Bootstrapping
Bagging
Feature Importance
Gradient Boosting Machines
(GBM) XGBoost, LightGBM,
CatBoost
Hyperparameter
Tuning Early
Stopping
Naive Bayes
Gaussian, Multinomial, Bernoulli Naive Bayes
Assumptions and Applications

5.Unsupervised Learning Algorithms

K-Means Clustering
Algorithm
Overview Elbow
Method
K-Means++
Initialization
Hierarchical Clustering
Agglomerative vs. Divisive
Clustering Dendrogram and
Optimal Cut
Principal Component Analysis
(PCA) Dimensionality
Reduction
Eigenvalue Decomposition
Scree Plot and Explained
 TABLE OF
Variance DBSCAN CONTENTS
Density-Based Clustering
Epsilon and MinPts Parameters
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
6. Reinforcement Learning
Introduction to Reinforcement Learning
Key Concepts (Agent, Environment, State, Action,
Reward) Markov Decision Process (MDP)
Q-Learning and Deep Q-Networks
(DQN) Policy Gradients and Actor-
Critic Methods Exploration vs.
Exploitation

7.Neural Networks & Deep Learning

Introduction to Neural
Networks Perceptrons
Activation Functions (Sigmoid, ReLU,
Tanh) Forward Propagation and
Backpropagation Loss Functions
(MSE, Cross-Entropy)
Deep Neural Networks
(DNN) Architecture
and Layers
Training Process and Optimizers
Overfitting and Regularization (Dropout, L2
Regularization) Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)
Convolutional Layers, Pooling
Layers Filter/Kernels and
Strides
Applications (Image Classification, Object
Detection) Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN)
Basic RNN vs. LSTM vs. GRU
Time-Series Prediction and NLP
Applications Vanishing and Exploding
Gradients Problem
Generative Adversarial Networks
(GANs) Generator and
Discriminator
Training Process
Applications (Image Generation, Data Augmentation)

8. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Text Preprocessing
Tokenization, Stopwords, Lemmatization,
Stemming Bag of Words, TF-IDF
Word Embeddings
Word2Vec, GloVe, FastText
Sentence Embeddings (BERT, RoBERTa,
GPT) Sequence Models
 TABLE OF
Recurrent Neural CONTENTS
Networks
(RNNs) LSTM and GRU
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
8. Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Transformer Architecture
Self-Attention
Mechanism Encoder-
Decoder Model
BERT, GPT, T5 Models
Text Classification
Sentiment Analysis, Named Entity Recognition
(NER) Language Generation
Text
Summarization
Machine
Translation

9. Model Evaluation and Metrics

Classification Metrics
Accuracy, Precision, Recall, F1-
Score Confusion Matrix
ROC Curve,
AUC Regression
Metrics
Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Squared
Error (MSE) R-Squared and Adjusted R-Squared
Cross-Validation
K-Fold Cross-Validation
Leave-One-Out Cross-
Validation Stratified K-Fold
Hyperparameter
Tuning Grid
Search
Random Search
Bayesian Optimization

10. Advanced
Topics
Transfer Learning
Pre-trained Models (VGG, ResNet,
BERT) Fine-Tuning and Feature
Extraction
Attention Mechanism
Self-Attention, Multi-Head
Attention Applications in NLP
and Vision
Reinforcement Learning in Deep Learning
Actor-Critic, A3C, Proximal Policy Optimization
 TABLE OF
(PPO) Federated CONTENTS
Learning
Distributed Learning
Frameworks Privacy-
Preserving ML
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
11. Tools and Libraries for AI/ML
Python Libraries
NumPy,
Pandas Scikit-
learn
TensorFlow, Keras, PyTorch
OpenCV for Computer
Vision NLTK, SpaCy for
NLP
Cloud
Platforms
Google
Colab
AWS
Sagemaker
Azure ML

12. Deployment and Production

Model Serialization (Pickle, Joblib)
Flask/Django for Model Deployment
Serving Models with TensorFlow Serving,
FastAPI Monitoring and Maintaining
Models in Production

13. Practice & Common Beginner Mistakes

Practice Tasks
Common Beginner Mistakes
 1. INTRODUCTION TO AI AND
ML
13.1 What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines or
computer programs to perform tasks that typically require
human intelligence. These tasks can include understanding
language, recognizing patterns, solving problems, and making
decisions.
Simple explanation:
AI is when machines are made smart enough to think
and act like humans.
Examples:
Voice assistants like Alexa
Image recognition
systems Chatbots
Self-driving cars

13.2 Types of AI: Narrow AI vs. General AI

Narrow AI (Weak AI):
Designed to perform one specific task
Cannot do anything beyond its programming
Examples: Email spam filters, facial recognition, recommendation
systems General AI (Strong AI):
Still under research and development
Can learn and perform any intellectual task a human can do
Would have reasoning, memory, and decision-making abilities
similar to a human

13.3 What is Machine Learning (ML)?

Machine Learning is a subfield of AI that allows machines to
learn from data and improve their performance over time
without being explicitly programmed.
Simple explanation:
Instead of writing rules for everything, we give the machine
data, and it figures out the rules on its own.
Example:
A machine learns to identify spam emails by studying thousands
of examples.
 1. INTRODUCTION TO AI AND
ML
13.4 Supervised vs. Unsupervised vs. Reinforcement Learning
Supervised Learning:
The training data includes both input and the correct
output (labels) The model learns by comparing its output
with the correct output
Example: Predicting house prices based on features like size,
location, etc. Unsupervised Learning:
The data has no labels
The model tries to find patterns or groupings in the data
Example: Grouping customers based on purchasing
behavior Reinforcement Learning:
The model learns through trial and error
It receives rewards or penalties based on its actions
Example: A robot learning to walk or a program learning to play
chess

13.5 Key Terminologies

Model:
A program or function that makes predictions or decisions based
on data. Feature:
An input variable used in making predictions (e.g., age,
income, temperature).
Target:
The value the model is trying to predict (e.g., house price, spam or
not). Algorithm:
A step-by-step method or set of rules used to train the
model. Training:
The process of teaching the model using a
dataset. Testing:
Evaluating the trained model on new, unseen data to
measure its accuracy.

13.6 Applications of AI and ML

Recommendation systems (YouTube, Amazon,
Netflix) Fraud detection in banking
Language
translation
Healthcare
diagnosis Self-
driving vehicles
Stock market prediction
Chatbots and customer support
Social media content moderation
 1. INTRODUCTION TO AI AND
ML
13.7 Difference Between AI, ML, and Deep Learning (DL)
Term Description

Visual analogy:
AI is the broader concept, ML is a part of AI, and DL is a part of ML.

Artificial Intelligence

Machine
Learning

Deep
Learning
 2. MATHEMATICS FOR
ML/AI
Mathematics is the foundation of AI and Machine Learning. It
helps us understand how algorithms work under the hood and
how to fine-tune models for better performance.

2.1 Linear Algebra

Linear Algebra deals with numbers organized in arrays and how
these arrays interact. It is used in almost every ML algorithm.

2.1.1 Vectors, Matrices, and Tensors

Vector: A 1D array of numbers. Example: [3, 5, 7]
Used to represent features like height,
weight, age. Matrix: A 2D array (rows and
columns).
Example:

Used to store datasets or model weights.

Tensor: A generalization of vectors and matrices to more

dimensions (3D or higher).
Example: Used in deep learning models like images (3D tensor:
width, height, color channels).

2.1.2 Matrix Operations

Addition/Subtraction: Add or subtract corresponding elements of
two matrices.
Multiplication: Used to combine weights and inputs in
ML models. Transpose: Flip a matrix over its diagonal.
Dot Product: Fundamental in calculating output in neural
networks.

2.1.3 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors

Eigenvector: A direction that doesn't change during a
transformation. Eigenvalue: Tells how much the eigenvector
is stretched or shrunk.

These are used in algorithms like Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

for dimensionality reduction.
 2. MATHEMATICS FOR
ML/AI
2.2 Probability and Statistics
Probability helps machines make decisions under
uncertainty, and statistics helps us understand data and
model performance.

2.2.1 Mean, Variance, Standard Deviation

Mean: The average value.
Variance: How spread out the values are from the mean.
Standard Deviation: The square root of variance. It measures
how much the values vary.
Used to understand the distribution and behavior of features in
datasets.

2.2.2 Bayes Theorem

A mathematical formula to calculate conditional probability:

Used in Naive Bayes classifiers for spam detection, document

classification, etc.

2.2.3 Conditional Probability

The probability of one event occurring given that another
event has already occurred.
Example:
Probability that a user clicks an ad given that they are between
20-30 years old.

2.2.4 Probability Distributions

Normal Distribution: Bell-shaped curve. Common in real-world data
like height, exam scores.
Binomial Distribution: Used for yes/no type outcomes. Example:
Flipping a coin 10 times.
Poisson Distribution: For events happening over a time period.
Example: Number of customer calls per hour.
These distributions help in modeling randomness in data.
 2. MATHEMATICS FOR
ML/AI
2.3 Calculus for Optimization
Calculus helps in training models by optimizing them to reduce
errors.

2.3.1 Derivatives and Gradients

Derivative: Measures how a function changes as its input changes.
Gradient: A vector of derivatives that tells the slope of a function
in multi- dimensions.
Used to find the direction in which the model should adjust its
weights.

2.3.2 Gradient Descent

An optimization algorithm used to minimize the loss (error)
function. How it works:
Start with random values
Calculate the gradient (slope)
Move slightly in the opposite direction of the
gradient Repeat until the loss is minimized
Gradient Descent is the core of many training algorithms in ML and
DL.
 3. DATA
PREPROCESSING
Before feeding data into any machine learning model, it must be
cleaned, transformed, and prepared. This step is called data
preprocessing, and it is one of the most important stages in
building accurate ML models.

3.1 Data Cleaning

Real-world data is often messy. Data cleaning means identifying
and fixing errors in the dataset.
3.1.1 Missing Values
Missing values can be due to incomplete forms, sensor
errors, etc. Techniques to handle missing data:
Remove rows/columns with too many missing
values Fill (impute) missing values using:
Mean/Median/Mode
Forward/Backward fill
Predictive models (like KNN)

3.1.2 Outliers
Outliers are data points that are very different
from others. They can distort results and reduce
model performance.
Detection methods:
Box plot, Z-score, IQR
method Handling outliers:
Remove them
Transform data (e.g., log scaling)
Cap them (set a maximum/minimum)

3.2 Data Normalization and Standardization

Helps scale numeric data so that features contribute equally to
the model. Normalization (Min-Max Scaling):
Scales all values between 0
and 1 Formula:

Used when the data is not normally

distributed Standardization (Z-score
Scaling):
Centers the data around mean = 0 and standard deviation = 1
Formula
:

Used when data is normally

distributed
 3. DATA
PREPROCESSING
3.3 Encoding Categorical Variables
ML models work with numbers, not text. Categorical data needs to
be converted into numerical form.
Label Encoding:
Assigns each unique category a
number. Example:

One-Hot Encoding:
Creates new binary columns for each category.
Example:

Label encoding is good for ordinal data (ranked), while one-hot

encoding is best for nominal data (non-ranked).

3.4Feature Scaling
Ensures features are on the same scale so the model can learn
effectively. Min-Max Scaling:
Scales features between 0 and 1.
Good for algorithms like KNN, neural
networks. Z-score Scaling (Standardization):
Useful for models that assume normality, like linear regression or
logistic regression.
Scaling is crucial for models that use distance or gradient-based
optimization.

3.5 Feature Engineering

Creating new features or modifying existing ones to improve
model performance.
Polynomial Features:
Create new features by raising existing features to a
power. Example: From x, create x², x³
Binning (Discretization):
Convert continuous data into
categories. Example: Age → [0–18], [19–
35], [36–60], 60+
Feature engineering can significantly boost the predictive power of a
model.
 3. DATA
PREPROCESSING
3.6 Handling Imbalanced Data
In classification, if one class dominates (e.g., 95% non-fraud, 5%
fraud), models may ignore the minority class. This is called class
imbalance.
SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique):
Creates synthetic examples of the minority class using nearest
neighbors. Undersampling:
Remove some samples from the majority class.
Oversampling:
Duplicate or generate more samples of the minority class.
Balancing data improves the ability of the model to correctly predict
both classes.
 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
Supervised learning uses labeled data, meaning the model learns
from input- output pairs (X → y). The algorithm tries to map inputs
(features) to correct outputs (targets/labels).

4.1 Linear Regression

Used for predicting continuous values (e.g., predicting house price,
temperature).

4.1.1 Simple vs. Multiple Linear Regression

Simple Linear Regression: One input (X) to predict one output (Y).
Example: Predicting salary from years of
experience. Multiple Linear Regression: Multiple
inputs (X1, X2, ..., Xn).
Example: Predicting price based on area, location, and age.

4.1.2 Gradient Descent and Normal Equation

Gradient Descent: Iterative method to minimize error (cost
function). Normal Equation: Direct way to find weights
using linear algebra:

Works for small datasets.

 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
4.1.3 Regularization (L1, L2)
Prevents overfitting by adding a penalty:
L1 (Lasso): Can reduce coefficients to 0 (feature
selection). L2 (Ridge): Shrinks coefficients but
doesn’t make them 0.
4.2Logistic Regression
Used for classification problems (e.g., spam vs. not spam).

4.2.1 Binary vs. Multiclass Classification

Binary: 2 outcomes (e.g., 0 or 1)
Multiclass: More than 2 classes (handled using One-vs-Rest or
Softmax)

4.2.2 Sigmoid and Cost Function

Sigmoid Function: Converts outputs to values between 0 and 1.

Cost Function: Log loss used to measure prediction error.

4.2.3 Regularization
L1 and L2 regularization help prevent overfitting in logistic
regression as well.
 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
4.3K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN)
A simple classification (or regression) algorithm that uses
proximity.

4.3.1 Distance Metrics

Euclidean Distance: Straight line between two
points. Manhattan Distance: Sum of absolute
differences.

4.3.2 Choosing K
K is the number of neighbors to
consider. Too low K → sensitive to
noise
Too high K → model becomes less flexible

4.3.3 Advantages & Disadvantages

Simple and easy to implement
Slow for large datasets, sensitive to irrelevant features

4.4 Support Vector Machines (SVM)

 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
PowerfulALGORITHMS
classification model for small to medium-sized datasets.
 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
4.4.1 Hyperplanes and Margins
SVM finds the best hyperplane that separates data with
maximum margin.

4.4.2 Linear vs. Non-Linear SVM

Linear SVM: Works when data is linearly separable.
Non-linear SVM: Uses kernel trick for complex datasets.

4.4.3 Kernel Trick

Transforms data into higher dimensions to make it
separable.
Common kernels: RBF (Gaussian), Polynomial, Sigmoid

4.5Decision Trees
Tree-like structure used for classification and regression.

4.5.1 Gini Impurity and Entropy

Measures how pure a node is:
Gini Impurity: Probability of
misclassification. Entropy: Measure of
randomness/information.

4.5.2 Overfitting and Pruning

Overfitting: Tree memorizes training data.
Pruning: Removes unnecessary branches to reduce overfitting.
 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
4.6Random Forest
An ensemble of decision trees to improve accuracy and reduce
overfitting.

4.6.1 Bootstrapping
Randomly selects subsets of data to train each tree.
4.6.2 Bagging
Combines predictions of multiple trees (majority vote or average).
4.6.3 Feature Importance
Measures which features contribute most to model prediction.

4.7Gradient Boosting Machines (GBM)

Boosting is an ensemble method where models are trained
sequentially.

4.7.1 XGBoost, LightGBM, CatBoost

Advanced boosting libraries:
XGBoost: Popular, fast, and accurate
LightGBM: Faster, uses leaf-wise growth
CatBoost: Handles categorical features automatically
 4. SUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
4.7.2 Hyperparameter Tuning
Adjust parameters
like: Learning
rate
Number of estimators
(trees) Max depth
Tools: GridSearchCV, RandomSearchCV
4.7.3 Early Stopping
Stops training if the model stops improving on validation set.

4.8 Naive Bayes

Probabilistic classifier based on Bayes' Theorem and strong
independence assumption.

4.8.1 Gaussian, Multinomial, Bernoulli

Gaussian NB: For continuous features (assumes normal
distribution) Multinomial NB: For text data, counts of words
Bernoulli NB: For binary features (0/1)
4.8.2 Assumptions and Applications
Assumes all features are independent (rarely true but still works
well)
Commonly used in spam detection, sentiment analysis,
document classif ication
 5. UNSUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
Unsupervised learning finds hidden patterns in unlabeled data.
Unlike supervised learning, it doesn't rely on labeled outputs (no
predefined target).

5.1 K-Means Clustering

5.1.1 Algorithm Overview

K-Means is a clustering algorithm that divides data into K
clusters based on similarity.
It works by:
a. Selecting K random centroids.
b.Assigning each point to the nearest centroid.
c. Updating the centroid to the mean of its assigned points.
d.Repeating steps 2–3 until the centroids stop changing.
5.1.2 Elbow Method
Used to choose the optimal number of clusters (K).
Plot the number of clusters (K) vs. Within-Cluster-Sum-of-
Squares (WCSS). The point where the WCSS curve bends (elbow)
is the best K.
5.1.3 K-Means++ Initialization
Improves basic K-Means by smartly selecting initial centroids,
reducing the chance of poor clustering.
Starts with one random centroid, then selects the next ones based
on distance from the current ones (probabilistically).

5.2 Hierarchical Clustering

 5. UNSUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
5.2.1 Agglomerative vs. Divisive Clustering
Agglomerative (bottom-up): Start with each point as its own
cluster and merge the closest clusters.
Divisive (top-down): Start with one large cluster and recursively
split it. Agglomerative is more commonly used.

5.2.2 Dendrogram and Optimal Cut

A dendrogram is a tree-like diagram that shows how clusters
are formed at each step.
The height of branches represents the distance between clusters.
Cutting the dendrogram at a certain height gives the desired
number of clusters.

5.3 Principal Component Analysis (PCA)

PCA is a dimensionality reduction technique used to simplify
datasets while retaining most of the important information.

5.3.1 Dimensionality Reduction

PCA transforms the data into a new coordinate system
with fewer dimensions (called principal components).
Useful for visualization, speeding up algorithms, and avoiding the
curse of dimensionality.
5.3.2 Eigenvalue Decomposition
PCA is based on eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the covariance
matrix of the data.
The eigenvectors define the new axes (principal components).
The eigenvalues indicate the amount of variance each
component captures.
5.3.3 Scree Plot and Explained Variance
Scree Plot: A plot of eigenvalues to help decide how many
components to keep.
The explained variance ratio shows how much of the data’s
variance is captured by each component.
 5. UNSUPERVISED LEARNING
ALGORITHMS
5.4DBSCAN (Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with
Noise)
DBSCAN is a density-based clustering algorithm that
groups closely packed points and marks outliers as
noise.

5.4.1 Density-Based Clustering

Unlike K-Means, DBSCAN doesn't require specifying the
number of clusters.
Clusters are formed based on dense regions in the data.

5.4.2 Epsilon and MinPts Parameters

Epsilon (ε): Radius around a point to search for neighbors.
MinPts: Minimum number of points required to form a
dense region. Points are classified as:
Core Point: Has MinPts within ε.
Border Point: Not a core but within ε of
a core. Noise: Neither core nor border.
 6. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING
(RL)
6.1 Introduction to Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a type of machine learning where
an agent learns to make decisions by interacting with an
environment. It is inspired by how humans learn from experience
— by trial and error.

The agent performs an action

The environment responds with a reward
The agent uses this feedback to learn better actions over time
Unlike supervised learning, RL doesn’t rely on labeled data. Instead,
it uses rewards or penalties to guide learning.

6.2 Key Concepts

Agent: The learner or decision maker (e.g., a robot, self-driving car).
Environment: Everything the agent interacts with (e.g., a
maze, a game). State: A snapshot of the current situation (e.g.,
position in a maze).
Action: A move or decision made by the agent (e.g., turn left).
Reward: Feedback from the environment (e.g., +1 for reaching goal, -
1 for hitting a wall).
The goal of the agent is to maximize cumulative rewards over time.

6.3 Markov Decision Process (MDP)

RL problems are often modeled as Markov Decision Processes
(MDPs). An MDP includes: S: Set of states A: Set of actions
P: Transition probabilities (P(s' | s, a)) R: Reward function γ
(gamma): Discount factor (how much future rewards are valued)
The "Markov" property means the next state only depends on
the current state and action, not on previous ones.
 6. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING
(RL)
6.4Q-Learning and Deep Q-Networks (DQN)
Q-Learning:
A model-free algorithm that learns the value (Q-value) of taking
an action in a state.
Uses the formula:

Where:
s: current
state a:
action
r: reward
s': next state
α: learning rate
γ: discount factor
Deep Q-Networks
(DQN):
When the state/action space is too large, a neural network is used
to approximate Q-values.
Combines Q-Learning with Deep
Learning. Used in Atari games and
robotics.

6.5 Policy Gradients and Actor-Critic Methods

Policy Gradients:
Instead of learning value functions, learn the policy directly
(probability distribution over actions).
Use gradient ascent to improve the policy based on the reward
received. Actor-Critic Methods:
Combine the best of both
worlds: Actor: chooses the
action
Critic: evaluates how good the action was (value
function) More stable and efficient than pure policy
 6. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING
gradients. (RL)
 6. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING
(RL)
6.6Exploration vs. Exploitation
Exploration: Trying new actions to discover their effects (important
early in training).
Exploitation: Choosing the best-known action for maximum
reward. RL must balance both:
Too much exploration = slow learning
Too much exploitation = stuck in local optimum
Common strategy: ε-greedy
Choose a random action with probability ε
Otherwise, choose the best-known action
 7. NEURAL NETWORKS & DEEP
LEARNING
7.1 Introduction to Neural Networks
A neural network is a computer model inspired by the human
brain. It consists of neurons (nodes) organized in layers, capable
of learning patterns from data.

7.1.1 Perceptrons
The perceptron is the simplest type of neural network, with:
Inputs → Weights → Summation → Activation Function →
Output It's like a yes/no decision maker (binary
classification).

7.1.2 Activation Functions

These introduce non-linearity, allowing the network to learn
complex functions:
Sigmoid: Outputs between 0 and 1. Good for probability-based
outputs.
ReLU (Rectified Linear Unit): Most popular. Fast, reduces
vanishing gradient.
ReLU(x) = max(0, x)
Tanh: Like sigmoid but outputs between -1 and 1.

7.1.3 Forward Propagation and Backpropagation

Forward Propagation: Input data flows through the network to
produce an output.
Backpropagation: Calculates the error and updates weights
using gradients (from loss function).
This is how neural networks learn from data.

7.1.4 Loss Functions

They measure how far off the prediction is from the
actual result. MSE (Mean Squared Error): Used in
regression problems.
Cross-Entropy Loss: Used in classification tasks.

7.2 Deep Neural Networks (DNN)

A Deep Neural Network has multiple hidden layers between
input and output.
 7. NEURAL NETWORKS & DEEP
LEARNING
7.2.1 Architecture and Layers
Input Layer: Where the data comes in
Hidden Layers: Where computation happens (many neurons
per layer) Output Layer: Final predictions

7.2.2 Training Process and Optimizers

During training, the
network: Makes
predictions
Calculates the loss
Updates weights via optimizers like:
SGD (Stochastic Gradient
Descent) Adam (adaptive
learning rate)
RMSProp

7.2.3 Overfitting and Regularization

Overfitting happens when the model learns noise instead of
patterns. Regularization techniques help:
Dropout: Randomly turns off neurons during training.
L2 Regularization: Penalizes large weights (weight decay).

7.3 Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)

CNNs are specialized for image data.

7.3.1 Convolutional Layers, Pooling Layers

Convolutional Layers: Apply filters to detect features (edges,
corners). Pooling Layers: Reduce size of feature maps (e.g.,
Max Pooling).

7.3.2 Filters/Kernels and Strides

Filters: Small matrix to slide over input to extract
features. Strides: Step size of the filter as it
moves.

7.3.3 Applications
Image
 7. NEURAL NETWORKS & DEEP
LEARNING
Classification
Face Recognition
Object Detection
 7. NEURAL NETWORKS & DEEP
LEARNING
7.4Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN)
RNNs are designed for sequential data (time series, text, etc.).

7.4.1 Basic RNN vs. LSTM vs. GRU

Basic RNN: Loops through time steps but suffers from
memory issues. LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory): Handles
long dependencies well.
GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit): Similar to LSTM but faster.

7.4.2 Time-Series Prediction and NLP Applications

Predict stock prices, weather, or language
sequences. Used in chatbots, translation, and
speech recognition.

7.4.3 Vanishing and Exploding Gradients

Problem during training of RNNs where gradients shrink
(vanish) or explode.
LSTM and GRU solve this with gate mechanisms.

7.5 Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

GANs are powerful models for generating new data.
 7. NEURAL NETWORKS & DEEP
LEARNING
7.5.1 Generator and Discriminator
Generator: Creates fake data
Discriminator: Tries to distinguish real from fake
data They compete with each other (like a forger and
a detective).

7.5.2 Training Process

Generator tries to fool the
discriminator Discriminator
improves to detect fakes
They both improve over time — leading to realistic generated data

7.5.3 Applications
Image Generation (e.g., fake
faces) Art and Style Transfer
Data Augmentation for training other ML models
 8. NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
(NLP)
NLP helps computers understand, interpret, and generate human
language. It's widely used in applications like chatbots,
translation tools, and voice assistants.

8.1 Text Preprocessing

Before using text in machine learning models, we need to clean
and convert it into a format the computer understands.

8.1.1 Tokenization
Breaking text into smaller parts like words or
sentences. Example: "I love AI" → ["I", "love", "AI"]

8.1.2 Stopwords
Removing common words that do not add much meaning (like
“is”, “the”, “and”).

8.1.3 Stemming
Cutting words down to their root
form. Example: “playing”, “played” →
“play”

8.1.4 Lemmatization
Similar to stemming but uses grammar to find the proper base
word. Example: “better” → “good”

8.1.5 Bag of Words (BoW)

Converts text into numbers based on word counts in a document.

8.1.6 TF-IDF
Gives importance to words that appear often in one document
but not in others. Helps identify keywords.
 8. NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
(NLP)
8.2Word Embeddings
Word embeddings turn words into vectors (numbers) so that a
machine can understand their meaning and context.
8.2.1 Word2Vec
A model that learns how words are related based on their
surrounding words.
8.2.2 GloVe
Learns word meanings by looking at how often words appear
together.
8.2.3 FastText
Similar to Word2Vec but also looks at parts of words, which helps
with unknown words.
8.2.4 Sentence Embeddings (BERT, RoBERTa, GPT)
These models convert full sentences into vectors. They understand
context much better than older models.

8.3Sequence Models
These models are good for processing data where order matters,
like text.
8.3.1 RNN (Recurrent Neural Networks)
Good for learning from sequences, such as sentences.
8.3.2 LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory)
An advanced RNN that remembers long-term information.
8.3.3 GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit)
A simpler version of LSTM that works faster and often just as well.

8.4 Transformer Architecture

Transformers are a powerful model used in almost all
modern NLP systems.
8.4.1 Self-Attention Mechanism
This allows the model to focus on important words in a
sentence, no matter where they appear.
8.4.2 Encoder-Decoder Model
Used in tasks like translation where the model reads input
(encoder) and generates output (decoder).
8.4.3 Examples:
BERT: Great for understanding
text. GPT: Great for generating
text.
T5: Can both understand and generate text for many tasks.
 8. NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
8.5Text
(NLP)
Classification
Classify text into categories.
Examples:
Sentiment Analysis: Is a review positive or negative?
Named Entity Recognition (NER): Find names, places, dates, etc.
in text.

8.6Language Generation
Generate new text from existing input.
8.6.1 Text Summarization
Shortens a long document while keeping important points.
8.6.2 Machine Translation
Translates text from one language to another (like English to
Hindi).
 9. MODEL EVALUATION AND
METRICS
Model evaluation helps us check how well our machine learning
models are performing. We use different metrics depending on
whether it's a classification or regression problem.

9.1 Classification Metrics

Used when your model predicts categories or classes (e.g., spam
or not spam).

9.1.1 Accuracy
How often the model is correct.
Formula: (Correct Predictions) / (Total Predictions)

9.1.2 Precision
Out of all predicted positives, how many were actually
positive? Used when false positives are costly.
Formula: TP / (TP + FP)

9.1.3 Recall (Sensitivity)

Out of all actual positives, how many were predicted
correctly? Used when missing positives is costly.
Formula: TP / (TP + FN)

9.1.4 F1-Score
Balance between precision and recall.
Formula: 2 * (Precision * Recall) / (Precision + Recall)

9.1.5 Confusion Matrix

A table showing True Positives, False Positives, False Negatives,
and True Negatives.

9.1.6 ROC Curve (Receiver Operating Characteristic)

Shows the trade-off between True Positive Rate and False Positive
Rate.

9.1.7 AUC (Area Under the Curve)

Measures the entire area under the ROC
curve. Higher AUC = better performance.
 9. MODEL EVALUATION AND
9.2
METRICS
Regression Metrics
Used when the model predicts continuous values (like house price,
temperature).

9.2.1 Mean Absolute Error (MAE)

Average of the absolute
errors. Easy to
understand.

9.2.2 Mean Squared Error (MSE)

Average of squared errors.
Penalizes large errors more than MAE.

9.2.3 R-Squared (R²)

Explains how much variance in the output is explained by
the model. Ranges from 0 to 1 (higher is better).

9.2.4 Adjusted R-Squared

Like R², but adjusts for the number of predictors (features).
Useful when comparing models with different numbers of
features.

9.3 Cross-Validation
Used to test model performance on different splits of the data.

9.3.1 K-Fold Cross-Validation

Split data into k equal parts. Train on k-1 and test on the
remaining part.
Repeat k times.

9.3.2 Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation (LOOCV)

A special case of K-Fold where k = number of data points. Very slow
but thorough.

9.3.3 Stratified K-Fold

Same as K-Fold, but keeps the ratio of classes the same in
each fold. Useful for imbalanced datasets.
 9. MODEL EVALUATION AND
METRICS
9.4Hyperparameter Tuning
Hyperparameters are settings that control how a model
learns (like learning rate, depth of a tree, etc.).

9.4.1 Grid Search

Tests all combinations of given hyperparameter values.

9.4.2 Random Search

Randomly selects combinations. Faster than Grid Search.

9.4.3 Bayesian Optimization

Uses past results to pick the next best combination. Smart and
efficient.
 10. ADVANCED
TOPICS
These are modern machine learning methods used in advanced
real-world applications such as chatbots, recommendation
systems, self-driving cars, and privacy-focused AI.

10.1 Transfer Learning

Instead of training a model from scratch, we use a model that has
already been trained on a large dataset and apply it to a new,
similar task.
Pre-trained Models
These are models trained on huge
datasets. Examples:
VGG, ResNet – for
images BERT – for text
Fine-Tuning
Slightly updating the pre-trained model using your own smaller
dataset.
Feature Extraction
Using the pre-trained model to extract useful features and then
using those features for your own model or task.

Benefit: Saves training time and works well even with limited data.

10.2 Attention Mechanism

This helps the model decide which parts of the input data are
most important.
Self-Attention
Every part of the input focuses on every other part to understand
context better.
Used in NLP (Natural Language Processing) and transformers.
Multi-Head Attention
Applies attention multiple times in parallel to capture
different relationships within the data.
Applications
In NLP: translation, summarization, question-
answering In vision: image recognition with
Vision Transformers
 10. ADVANCED
10.2 Attention
TOPICS
Mechanism

10.3 Reinforcement Learning in Deep Learning

Combining deep learning with reinforcement learning for
decision- making tasks.
Actor-Critic
Two models work together:
Actor: selects the best action
Critic: evaluates how good the action was
A3C (Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic)
Uses multiple agents to learn in parallel, which speeds up
learning and increases stability.
PPO (Proximal Policy Optimization)
An improved and stable way to train reinforcement learning
agents. Used in games, robotics, etc.

Artificial
Intelligence
(AI)

Machine
Learning
(ML)

Deep

Reinforcement Learning (DL)

 10. ADVANCED
10.4 Federated TOPICS
Learning
Model training happens across many devices without collecting
data in a central server. Each device keeps its data private and
only sends model updates.
Distributed Learning Frameworks
Used when data is spread across users, hospitals, or devices.
Examples include Google’s keyboard predictions.
Privacy-Preserving ML
Since data never leaves the device, user privacy is protected.
This is useful in healthcare, banking, and personal mobile
applications.
 11. TOOLS AND LIBRARIES FOR
AI/ML
These tools help you build, train, and deploy AI/ML models more
efficiently. They provide ready-to-use functions so you don’t need
to code everything from scratch.

11.1 Python Libraries

Python is the most popular language in AI/ML. These libraries
make your work faster and easier:
NumPy
Used for numerical computing.
Supports arrays, matrices, and linear algebra
operations. Pandas
Used for data manipulation and analysis.
You can load data, clean it, and analyze it in tabular formats
(DataFrames). Scikit-learn
A powerful machine learning library.
Includes ready-to-use models like Linear Regression, SVM, Random
Forest, KNN, and more.
TensorFlow & Keras
Used for building deep learning
models. TensorFlow: low-level
control
Keras: high-level interface, easier to
use PyTorch
An alternative to TensorFlow, widely used in research and
development. It’s flexible, fast, and dynamic (supports on-the-
fly computation graphs).
OpenCV
Used for computer vision tasks like image processing, object
detection, face recognition, etc.
NLTK & SpaCy
Natural Language Processing (NLP) libraries.
NLTK: good for learning, includes many basic
NLP tasks SpaCy: industrial-strength NLP, faster
and more efficient
 11. TOOLS AND LIBRARIES FOR
11.2 AI/ML
Cloud Platforms
Cloud platforms help you run your models on powerful servers
without needing your own hardware.

Google Colab
Free online Jupyter
Notebook Supports
GPU/TPU
Great for students and
beginners AWS SageMaker
Amazon’s cloud ML platform
Supports training, tuning, and deploying models
at scale Used in enterprise-level applications
Azure ML
Microsoft’s machine learning platform
Integrates well with other Microsoft tools (e.g., Excel,
Power BI) Provides autoML, drag-and-drop pipelines,
and more
 12. DEPLOYMENT AND
12.1 PRODUCTION
Model Serialization
What it means:
After training your machine learning model, you save (serialize)
it to use later without retraining.
Popular tools:
Pickle – A Python library to serialize and deserialize
Python objects. Joblib – Similar to Pickle but better for
large NumPy arrays.
Example:

12.2 Flask/Django for Model Deployment

These are web frameworks that let you expose your model as an
API endpoint, so other apps or users can access it via the internet.
Flask: Lightweight and easier for quick ML model APIs.
Django: Heavier but better for large web applications with built-in
admin, security, and ORM.
Flask Example:
 12. DEPLOYMENT AND
12.3 PRODUCTION
Serving Models with TensorFlow Serving, FastAPI
TensorFlow Serving:
Used to deploy TensorFlow models in production. It supports
versioning and high-performance serving with REST/gRPC.
FastAPI:
A modern, fast (high-performance) framework for building APIs
with automatic docs, great for production-grade ML APIs.
FastAPI Example:

12.4 Monitoring and Maintaining Models in Production

Once your model is live, you need to ensure it continues to
perform well. What to monitor:
Model accuracy degradation (due to
data drift) Response time
Error rates
System metrics (CPU,
memory) Tools:
Prometheus + Grafana for system and application monitoring
MLflow or Evidently.ai for tracking model performance over time
 13. PRACTICE & COMMON BEGINNER MISTAKES
13.1 Practice Tasks
To strengthen understanding, here are simple practice tasks for each
core concept:

Topic Mini Practice Task

Linear Predict house prices using a dataset with features like area,
Regression
rooms, and location.

Build a binary classifier to detect spam emails.

Logistic

Group customers by shopping behavior (customer

Regression K-
segmentation).

Means Clustering
PCA Reduce dimensions in the Iris dataset and visualize

Decision clusters. Classify if a person will buy a product based on

Trees
age, income, etc.

CNN Classify hand-written digits using the MNIST

s dataset. Predict the next word in a sentence using

RNN a small corpus. Generate new handwritten digits

s after training on MNIST.

GAN

NLP Build a sentiment analysis model on product reviews.

13.2 Common Beginner Mistakes

General ML Mistakes
Using test data during training
Not normalizing/scaling features
Ignoring class imbalance in
classification tasks Forgetting to check
for data leakage
Not splitting the dataset correctly
(Train/Validation/Test) Neural Network Mistakes
Using too many/too few layers without
tuning Choosing wrong activation/loss
 functions
Ignoring overfitting (no dropout or
regularization) NLP Mistakes
Feeding raw text without preprocessing
Using TF-IDF on small datasets without
context Confusing stemming with
lemmatization
Deployment Mistakes
Not checking model performance after
deployment Ignoring real-time latency
No monitoring/logging in place