Machine Learning from Scratch
Machine Learning from Scratch
Series Information
Program: Machine Learning from Scratch
Year: 2021
Organizers: Johannes Bill, John Vastloa, Binxu Wang
Institution: Harvard Medical School
Target Audience: Neuroscience graduate students and postdocs
Series Objective
A student-led tutorial and seminar series designed to teach neuroscience students cutting-edge machine learning models by implementing them from scratch. The hands-on approach ensures deep understanding of both theoretical foundations and practical implementation.
Tutorial Topics
1. Transformers and Large Language Models (LLMs)
Topics Covered:
- Natural Language Processing (NLP) fundamentals
- Attention mechanism deep dive
- Transformer architecture from first principles
- Training language models
- Usage and fine-tuning of pretrained models
- Applications beyond language: vision, audio, image generation
Materials:
- Interactive Jupyter/Colab notebooks
- Step-by-step implementation guides
- Detailed mathematical derivations
- Practical coding exercises
2. Stable Diffusion Models
Topics Covered:
- Principles of diffusion models
- UNet model architecture
- Contextualized word embedding
- Cross-attention mechanisms
- Autoencoder efficiency techniques
- Large-scale training strategies
Key Concepts:
- Forward and reverse diffusion processes
- Noise scheduling
- Conditional generation
- Image synthesis applications
3. Mathematical Foundation of Diffusion Generative Models
Advanced Topics:
- Score function and data distribution gradients
- Reversing forward diffusion process mathematically
- Score function learning techniques
- Neural network score approximation
- Advanced sampling methods (DDPM, DDIM)
Materials:
- Rigorous mathematical derivations
- Implementation from theoretical principles
- Performance optimization techniques
- Comparison of different sampling strategies