Reinforcement Learning has become one of the hottest research areas in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. You can make an intelligent agent in a few steps: have it semi-randomly explore different choices of movement to actions given different conditions and states, then keep track of the reward or penalty associated with each choice for a given state or action. This Course describes and compares the range of model-based and model-free learning algorithms that constitute Reinforcement Learning algorithms.

This comprehensive 3-in-1 course follows a step-by-step practical approach to getting grips with the basics of Reinforcement Learning with R and build your own intelligent systems. Initially, you’ll learn how to implement Reinforcement Learning techniques using the R programming language. You’ll also learn concepts and key algorithms in Reinforcement Learning. Moving further, you’ll dive into Temporal Difference Learning, an algorithm that combines Monte Carlo methods and dynamic programming. Finally, you’ll implement typical applications for model-based and model-free RL.

Towards the end of this course, you'll get to grips with the basics of Reinforcement Learning with R and build your own intelligent systems.

Contents and Overview

This training program includes 3 complete courses, carefully chosen to give you the most comprehensive training possible.

The first course, Reinforcement Learning Techniques with R, covers Reinforcement Learning techniques with R. This Course will give you a brief introduction to Reinforcement Learning; it will help you navigate the "Grid world" to calculate likely successful outcomes using the popular MDPToolbox package. This video will show you how the Stimulus - Action - Reward algorithm works in Reinforcement Learning. By the end of this Course, you will have a basic understanding of the concept of reinforcement learning, you will have compiled your first Reinforcement Learning program, and will have mastered programming the environment for Reinforcement Learning.

The second course, Practical Reinforcement Learning - Agents and Environments, covers concepts and Key Algorithms in Reinforcement Learning. In this course, you’ll learn how to code the core algorithms in RL and get to know the algorithms in both R and Python. This video course will help you hit the ground running, with R and Python code for Value Iteration, Policy Gradients, Q-Learning, Temporal Difference Learning, the Markov Decision Process, and Bellman Equations, which provides a framework for modelling decision making where outcomes are partly random and partly under the control of a decision maker. At the end of the video course, you’ll know the main concepts and key algorithms in RL.

The third course, Discover Algorithms for Reward-Based Learning in R, covers Model-Based and Model-Free RL Algorithms with R. The Course starts by describing the differences in model-free and model-based approaches to Reinforcement Learning. It discusses the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, and typical examples of model-free and model-based approaches. We look at model-based approaches to Reinforcement Learning. We discuss State-value and State-action value functions, Model-based iterative policy evaluation, and improvement, MDP R examples of moving a pawn, how the discount factor, gamma, “works” and an R example illustrating how the discount factor and relative rewards affect policy. Next, we learn the model-free approach to Reinforcement Learning. This includes Monte Carlo approach, Q-Learning approach, More Q-Learning explanation and R examples of varying the learning rate and randomness of actions and SARSA approach. Finally, we round things up by taking a look at model-free Simulated Annealing and more Q-Learning algorithms. The primary aim is to learn how to create efficient, goal-oriented business policies, and how to evaluate and optimize those policies, primarily using the MDP toolbox package in R. Finally, the video shows how to build actions, rewards, and punishments with a simulated annealing approach.

Towards the end of this course, you'll get to grips with the basics of Reinforcement Learning with R and build your own intelligent systems.

About the Authors

• Dr. Geoffrey Hubona held a full-time tenure-track, and tenured, assistant, and associate professor faculty positions at three major state universities in the Eastern United States from 1993-2010. In these positions, he taught dozens of various statistics, business information systems, and computer science courses to undergraduate, masters and Ph.D. students. Dr. Hubona earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration (Information Systems and Computer Science) from the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL (1993); an MA in Economics (1990), also from USF; an MBA in Finance (1979) from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA; and a BA in Psychology (1972) from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.

• Lauren Washington is currently the Lead Data Scientist and Machine Learning Developer for smartQED , an AI-driven start-up. Lauren worked as a Data Scientist for Topix, Payments Risk Strategist for Google (Google Wallet/Android Pay), Statistical Analyst for Nielsen, and Big Data Intern for the National Opinion Research Center through the University of Chicago. Lauren is also passionate about teaching Machine Learning. She’s currently giving back to the data science community as a Thankful Data Science Bootcamp Mentor and a Packt Publishing technical video reviewer. She also earned a Data Science certificate from General Assembly San Francisco (2016), an MA in the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (Applied Statistical Methods) from Columbia University (2012), and a BA in Economics from Spelman College (2010). Lauren is a leader in AI, in Silicon Valley, with a passion for knowledge gathering and sharing.