Courses

ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DATA WITH MACHINE LEARNING METHODS 22.-25. April 2002, Ljubljana, Slovenia http://www-ai.ijs.si/SasoDzeroski/aep/aep.html

Organized by Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, in cooperation with University of Ljubljana and Nova Gorica Polytechnic

The seminar will give an introduction to selected machine learning methods as well as illustrative case studies of using these methods to analyse environmental data, such as modeling algal growth in lakes and lagoons, analysing the influence of physical and chemical parameters on selected bioindicator organisms, and predicting the biodegradability of chemical compounds. The participants will learn to use selected machine learning tools and will have the opportunity for practical work with these tools on real environmental data. The machine learning methods and tools introduced are applicable to data analysis problems from different areas.

The seminar is intended for researchers and other professionals in the areas of biology, chemistry, environmental science, and other areas related to ecology and environmental management, whose work requires the analysis of environmental data or modeling ecological processes.

Contents

• Introduction to machine learning
  o Data mining and knowledge discovery
  o Evaluating classifiers
  o Instance-based learning (nearest neighbor classification)
  o Introduction to decision trees
  o Learning classification and regression trees
  o Learning classification rules
  o Naive Bayesian classification
  o Machine discovery of equations
  o Selecting and combining classifiers
• An overview of environmental applications of machine learning
  o Analysis of the influence of environmental factors
  on respiratory diseases
  o Analysis of the influence of soil habitat features
  on the abundance of Collembola
  o Modeling phytoplankton growth
  o Modeling interactions among red deer population,
  meteorological parameters and new forest growth
• Case studies of using machine learning to analyse ecological data
  o Analysis of water quality data (Slovenian and English rivers)
  o Modeling algal growth in the Lagoon of Venice and Lake Bled
  o Predicting biodegradability of chemical compounds
  o Runoff prediction from rainfall and past runoff
• Demonstrations/hands-on exercises/practical work
  with machine learning software packages
  on real ecological data and individual consultations with lecturers
• Participant presentations and discussion