Written in an easily accessible style, this book provides the ideal blend of theory and practical, applicable knowledge. It covers neural networks, graphical models, reinforcement learning, evolutionary algorithms, dimensionality reduction methods, and the important area of optimization. It treads the fine line between adequate academic rigor and overwhelming students with equations and mathematical concepts. The author includes examples based on widely available datasets as well as practical and theoretical problems to test understanding and application of the material. The book describes algorithms with code examples backed up by a website that provides working implementations in Python.