Oxford, United Kingdom

Statistics and Machine Learning

Table of contents

Statistics and Machine Learning at University of Oxford

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: mathematics and statistics
University website: www.ox.ac.uk

Definitions and quotes

Machine
A machine uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an intended action. Machines can be driven by animals and people, by natural forces such as wind and water, and by chemical, thermal, or electrical power, and include a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement. They can also include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, often called mechanical systems.
Machine Learning
Machine learning is a field of computer science that often uses statistical techniques to give computers the ability to "learn" (i.e., progressively improve performance on a specific task) with data, without being explicitly programmed.
Statistics
Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data. In applying statistics to, for example, a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model process to be studied. Populations can be diverse topics such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with all aspects of data including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments. See glossary of probability and statistics.
Statistics
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli by Mark Twain in "Chapters from My Autobiography — XX", North American Review No. DCXVIII (JULY 5, 1907) [1]. His attribution is unverified and the origin is uncertain: see Lies, damned lies, and statistics and Leonard H. Courtney. Other authors to whom the quote has been attributed, as reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989), include Henry Labouchère, Abram S. Hewitt, and Holloway H. Frost.
Machine
It’s possible to imagine a machine that could scoop up material – rocks from the Moon or rocks from asteroids – process them inside and produce just about any product: washing machines or teacups or automobiles or starships. Once such a machine exists it could gather sunlight and materials that it’s sitting on, and produce on call whatever product anybody wants to name, as long as somebody knows how to make it and those instructions can be given to the machine.
Theodore Taylor (1978) as quoted in Nigel Calder, Spaceships of the Mind, Viking Press, New York, 1978; quoted in Robert A. Freitas Jr., Ralph C. Merkle, Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 2004
Statistics
Statistics has been the most successful information science.
Those who ignore Statistics are condemned to reinvent it.
Attributed to Bradley Efron by Jerome H. Friedman (April 2001). "The Role of Statistics in the Data Revolution?". International Statistical Review 69: 5-10.
One of the main problems of the use of nuclear energy is nuclear waste management. An EU-funded project focuses on assessing the use of minor actinides from the used nuclear fuel as a fuel for next-generation nuclear reactors.
Privacy Policy