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