[mlpack] mlpack's projects in Google Summer of Code 2016

[Marcus Edel]

Hello,

I'm also very excited about the great projects we have for this year, and I'm
looking forward to work with all of you.

For all the students who applied but didn't got in. You are still more than
welcome to contribute or to do a project with us, mlpack is an open-source
project, after all.

Congratulations to Bang, Keon, Marcos, Mikhail, Nilay, and Yannis!

All the best
Marcus

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 19:30, Ryan Curtin <ryan at ratml.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello there,
> 
> After much deliberation, we have selected 6 projects for mlpack this
> year for GSoC, out of a record-breaking 119 applications.  In many
> cases, these decisions were quite difficult to make, and we are sorry
> that we could not accept all of the exceptional students who applied.  I
> want to thank everyone who applied---I know how much work goes into the
> application process.
> 
> This year, here are the six projects that will be done as part of Google
> Summer of Code:
> 
> ----
> 
> "Neuroevolution Algorithms Implementation"
>  by Bang Liu, mentored by Marcus Edel
> 
>  Bang will implement neuroevolution algorithms for the neural network
> framework in mlpack, such as CNE, NEAT, and HyperNEAT.  These will be
> tested on various problems, including applying HyperNEAT to NES games.
> In addition, benchmarking will be done to verify that mlpack's
> implementations are competitive with---or faster than---other
> implementations of these neuroevolution algorithms.
> 
> ----
> 
> "Dataset and Experimentation Tools"
>  by Keon Kim, mentored by Tham Ngap Wei
> 
>  Keon will design and develop utilities for dataset management in
> mlpack.  Specifically, Keon will create four separate modules for
> working with datasets: (1) dataset I/O (convert dataset formats, etc.);
> (2) data transformation (join/split data, clean missing data, etc.); (3)
> statistical analytics (mean/mode/median, t-test, etc.); (4) mathematical
> operators (rounding, timezone handling, etc.).  These will supplement
> the existing mlpack machine learning algorithms and can be used for
> preprocessing (or postprocessing).
> 
> ----
> 
> "Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search"
>  by Marcos Pividori, mentored by Sumedh Ghaisas
> 
>  Marcos will extend the existing knn/kfn implementation to support
> approximation, and then implement spill trees and the "defeatist"
> strategy for approximate nearest neighbor search.  Then, he will
> benchmark the mlpack aknn implementation against other aknn strategies
> using the mlpack benchmarking system.
> 
> ----
> 
> "Implement tree types"
>  by Mikhail Lozhnikov, mentored by Ryan Curtin
> 
>  Mikhail will extend previous years' tree types projects by
> implementing several types of trees: R+ trees, Hilbert R Trees, vantage
> point trees, random projection trees, and UB trees.  Each of these will
> be usable by mlpack's various dual-tree algorithms (like nearest
> neighbor search, range search, FastMKS, emst, and others).
> 
> ----
> 
> "We need to go deeper - GoogLeNeT"
>  by Nilay Jain, mentored by Tham Ngap Wei and Marcus Edel
> 
>  Nilay will implement the components of the GoogLeNet architecture (the
> inception layer, global average pooling, and other pieces), and then
> build a GoogLeNet on a sample of ImageNet data.  The pieces of this
> architecture will be usable for other neural network applications.
> 
> ----
> 
> "Implementation of Multiprobe LSH and LSH Tuning"
>  by Yannis Mentekidis, mentored by Ryan Curtin
> 
>  Yannis will significantly improve the existing LSH framework we have
> in place by implementing multiprobe LSH and also LSH tuning, which is
> what the LSHKIT package implements, as well as OpenMP support since many
> parts of LSH are embarrassingly parallel.  If time permits, he will
> implement more LSH strategies.
> 
> ----
> 
> I am very excited about the great projects we have for this year, and I
> am very much looking forward to seeing the results.  When the Summer of
> Code starts, on May 23, students will make progress reports available
> either on the mlpack blog (http://www.mlpack.org/gsocblog/) or as
> mailing list posts, so you can follow how the projects are going and
> provide any comments if you like.
> 
> You can find more information on each of the projects on the Summer of
> Code website:
> 
> http://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/5376684740050944/
> 
> Anyway, congratulations to Bang, Keon, Marcos, Mikhail, Nilay, and
> Yannis!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ryan
> 
> -- 
> Ryan Curtin    | "I was misinformed."
> ryan at ratml.org |   - Rick Blaine
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