In this course, the main ideas to get you started in reinforcement learning will be presented. By the end of the course, you should be able to start applying it in practice, and/or follow the latest trends in this born-again field.
Overall course length – 20 classes.
Number of ECTS – 5.
The course starts on 24th of May. The classes go every other week. The last section of the course is on July 12-14.
Course syllabus
Section 1 (May 24)
- Lecture 1. Introduction to Reinforcement Learning. Problem Formulation
- Lecture 2. Markov Decision Process and Dynamic Programming
- Practice 1. Introduction to Open AI Gym. Possible project topics selection
Section 2 (June 7)
- Lecture 3. Bandit Algorithms
- Practice 2. Implementation of bandit algorithm
- Lecture 4. Monte Carlo Methods
Section 3 (June 21-23)
- Lecture 5. Temporal Difference
- Lecture 6. TD with Function Approximation
- Practice 3. TD: Implementation
- Practice 4. Mid-term project presentations
- Lecture 7. Policy Gradient and Actor-Critic Methods
- Practice 5. OpenAI Gym
Section 4 (July 12-14)
- Lecture 8. Two-player games
- Lecture 9. Evolutionary Game Theory
- Practice 6. Game dynamics: fictitious play, self-play, evolutionary game theory
- Lecture 10. Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
- Lecture 11. Games with incomplete information
- Practice 7. Counterfactual Regret minimization (Kuhn poker)
- Lecture 12. Combining RL and search
- Practice 8. Final project presentation
Prerequisites
- Python programming
- Statistics
- Machine Learning (basics)
- Neural Networks (good to know)
Course enrollment
The participants are enrolled in the course based on the application process. Please fill the following application form: goo.gl/forms/UxSf6PMiAcJYF4u63. The personal motivation statement and previous background in Statistics, Machine Learning, and Python programming are counted for the participant selection process. The application deadline is 16th of May. The application results will be announced no later than 18th of May. Please pay attention that the organizers could close the application earlier in case there will be enough requests to fill all free spaces in a class. Also, the organizers could ask for the additional interview with the applicants to clarify the aspects of their application and/or check prerequisites knowledge.Course fee
The participation fee is 13 900 UAH. The payment should be made in two transactions:- 7 900 UAH – until May 23
- 6 000 UAH – until July 1