Abstract: 

Deep learning is the newest area of machine learning and has become ubiquitous in predictive modeling. The complex, brainlike structure of deep learning models is used to find intricate patterns in large volumes of data. These models have heavily improved the performance of general supervised models, time series, speech recognition, object detection and classification, and sentiment analysis.

Factorization machines are a relatively new and powerful tool for modeling high-dimensional and sparse data. Most commonly they are used as recommender systems by modeling the relationship between users and items. For example, factorization machines can be used to recommend your next Netflix binge based on how you and other streamers rate content.

In this session, participants will use recurrent neural networks to analyze sequential data and improve the forecast performance of time series data, and use convolutional neural networks for image classification. Participants will also use an intelligent search method to efficiently tune the hyperparameters of both deep learning models. Finally, students will use factorization machines to model the relationship between movies and viewers to make recommendations.
Demonstrations are provided in both R and Python, and will be administered from a Jupyter notebook. Students will use the open source SWAT package (SAS Wrapper for Analytics Transfer) to access SAS CAS (Cloud Analytic Services) in order to take advantage of the in-memory distributed environment. CAS provides a fast and scalable environment to build complex models and analyze big data by using algorithms designed for parallel processing.

Bio: 

Jordan Bakerman holds a Ph.D. in statistics from North Carolina State University. His dissertation centered on using social media to forecast real world events, such as civil unrest and influenza rates. As an intern at SAS, Jordan wrote the SAS Programming for R Users course for students to efficiently transition from the R to SAS using a cookbook style approach. As an employee, Jordan has developed courses demonstrating how to integrate open source software within SAS products. He is passionate about statistics, programming, and helping others become better statisticians.