Building and testing machine learning models requires access to large and diverse data. But where can you find usable datasets without running into privacy issues? This practical book introduces techniques for generating synthetic data—fake data generated from real data—so you can perform secondary analysis to do research, understand customer behaviors, develop new products, or generate new revenue. Data scientists will learn how synthetic data generation provides a way to make such data broadly available for secondary purposes while addressing many privacy concerns. Analysts will learn the principles and steps for generating synthetic data from real datasets. And business leaders will see how synthetic data can help accelerate time to a product or solution. This book describes: Steps for generating synthetic data using multivariate normal distributions Methods for distribution fitting covering different goodness-of-fit metrics How to replicate the simple structure of original data An approach for modeling data structure to consider complex relationships Multiple approaches and metrics you can use to assess data utility How analysis performed on real data can be replicated with synthetic data Privacy implications of synthetic data and methods to assess identity disclosure

The aim of this book is to give the reader a detailed introduction to the different approaches to generating multiply imputed synthetic datasets. It describes all approaches that have been developed so far, provides a brief history of synthetic datasets, and gives useful hints on how to deal with real data problems like nonresponse, skip patterns, or logical constraints. Each chapter is dedicated to one approach, first describing the general concept followed by a detailed application to a real dataset providing useful guidelines on how to implement the theory in practice. The discussed multiple imputation approaches include imputation for nonresponse, generating fully synthetic datasets, generating partially synthetic datasets, generating synthetic datasets when the original data is subject to nonresponse, and a two-stage imputation approach that helps to better address the omnipresent trade-off between analytical validity and the risk of disclosure. The book concludes with a glimpse into the future of synthetic datasets, discussing the potential benefits and possible obstacles of the approach and ways to address the concerns of data users and their understandable discomfort with using data that doesn’t consist only of the originally collected values. The book is intended for researchers and practitioners alike. It helps the researcher to find the state of the art in synthetic data summarized in one book with full reference to all relevant papers on the topic. But it is also useful for the practitioner at the statistical agency who is considering the synthetic data approach for data dissemination in the future and wants to get familiar with the topic.

Simulation and synthesis are core parts of the future of AI and machine learning. Consider: programmers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers can create the brain of a self-driving car without the car. Rather than use information from the real world, you can synthesize artificial data using simulations to train traditional machine learning models.That’s just the beginning. With this practical book, you’ll explore the possibilities of simulation- and synthesis-based machine learning and AI, concentrating on deep reinforcement learning and imitation learning techniques. AI and ML are increasingly data driven, and simulations are a powerful, engaging way to unlock their full potential. You'll learn how to: Design an approach for solving ML and AI problems using simulations with the Unity engine Use a game engine to synthesize images for use as training data Create simulation environments designed for training deep reinforcement learning and imitation learning models Use and apply efficient general-purpose algorithms for simulation-based ML, such as proximal policy optimization Train a variety of ML models using different approaches Enable ML tools to work with industry-standard game development tools, using PyTorch, and the Unity ML-Agents and Perception Toolkits

Keep sensitive user data safe and secure without sacrificing the performance and accuracy of your machine learning models. In Privacy Preserving Machine Learning, you will learn: Privacy considerations in machine learning Differential privacy techniques for machine learning Privacy-preserving synthetic data generation Privacy-enhancing technologies for data mining and database applications Compressive privacy for machine learning Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning is a comprehensive guide to avoiding data breaches in your machine learning projects. You’ll get to grips with modern privacy-enhancing techniques such as differential privacy, compressive privacy, and synthetic data generation. Based on years of DARPA-funded cybersecurity research, ML engineers of all skill levels will benefit from incorporating these privacy-preserving practices into their model development. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll be able to create machine learning systems that preserve user privacy without sacrificing data quality and model performance. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Machine learning applications need massive amounts of data. It’s up to you to keep the sensitive information in those data sets private and secure. Privacy preservation happens at every point in the ML process, from data collection and ingestion to model development and deployment. This practical book teaches you the skills you’ll need to secure your data pipelines end to end. About the Book Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning explores privacy preservation techniques through real-world use cases in facial recognition, cloud data storage, and more. You’ll learn about practical implementations you can deploy now, future privacy challenges, and how to adapt existing technologies to your needs. Your new skills build towards a complete security data platform project you’ll develop in the final chapter. What’s Inside Differential and compressive privacy techniques Privacy for frequency or mean estimation, naive Bayes classifier, and deep learning Privacy-preserving synthetic data generation Enhanced privacy for data mining and database applications About the Reader For machine learning engineers and developers. Examples in Python and Java. About the Author J. Morris Chang is a professor at the University of South Florida. His research projects have been funded by DARPA and the DoD. Di Zhuang is a security engineer at Snap Inc. Dumindu Samaraweera is an assistant research professor at the University of South Florida. The technical editor for this book, Wilko Henecka, is a senior software engineer at Ambiata where he builds privacy-preserving software. Table of Contents PART 1 - BASICS OF PRIVACY-PRESERVING MACHINE LEARNING WITH DIFFERENTIAL PRIVACY 1 Privacy considerations in machine learning 2 Differential privacy for machine learning 3 Advanced concepts of differential privacy for machine learning PART 2 - LOCAL DIFFERENTIAL PRIVACY AND SYNTHETIC DATA GENERATION 4 Local differential privacy for machine learning 5 Advanced LDP mechanisms for machine learning 6 Privacy-preserving synthetic data generation PART 3 - BUILDING PRIVACY-ASSURED MACHINE LEARNING APPLICATIONS 7 Privacy-preserving data mining techniques 8 Privacy-preserving data management and operations 9 Compressive privacy for machine learning 10 Putting it all together: Designing a privacy-enhanced platform (DataHub)

This is the first book on synthetic data for deep learning, and its breadth of coverage may render this book as the default reference on synthetic data for years to come. The book can also serve as an introduction to several other important subfields of machine learning that are seldom touched upon in other books. Machine learning as a discipline would not be possible without the inner workings of optimization at hand. The book includes the necessary sinews of optimization though the crux of the discussion centers on the increasingly popular tool for training deep learning models, namely synthetic data. It is expected that the field of synthetic data will undergo exponential growth in the near future. This book serves as a comprehensive survey of the field. In the simplest case, synthetic data refers to computer-generated graphics used to train computer vision models. There are many more facets of synthetic data to consider. In the section on basic computer vision, the book discusses fundamental computer vision problems, both low-level (e.g., optical flow estimation) and high-level (e.g., object detection and semantic segmentation), synthetic environments and datasets for outdoor and urban scenes (autonomous driving), indoor scenes (indoor navigation), aerial navigation, and simulation environments for robotics. Additionally, it touches upon applications of synthetic data outside computer vision (in neural programming, bioinformatics, NLP, and more). It also surveys the work on improving synthetic data development and alternative ways to produce it such as GANs. The book introduces and reviews several different approaches to synthetic data in various domains of machine learning, most notably the following fields: domain adaptation for making synthetic data more realistic and/or adapting the models to be trained on synthetic data and differential privacy for generating synthetic data with privacy guarantees. This discussion is accompanied by an introduction into generative adversarial networks (GAN) and an introduction to differential privacy.

This book provides modern technical answers to the legal requirements of pseudonymisation as recommended by privacy legislation. It covers topics such as modern regulatory frameworks for sharing and linking sensitive information, concepts and algorithms for privacy-preserving record linkage and their computational aspects, practical considerations such as dealing with dirty and missing data, as well as privacy, risk, and performance assessment measures. Existing techniques for privacy-preserving record linkage are evaluated empirically and real-world application examples that scale to population sizes are described. The book also includes pointers to freely available software tools, benchmark data sets, and tools to generate synthetic data that can be used to test and evaluate linkage techniques. This book consists of fourteen chapters grouped into four parts, and two appendices. The first part introduces the reader to the topic of linking sensitive data, the second part covers methods and techniques to link such data, the third part discusses aspects of practical importance, and the fourth part provides an outlook of future challenges and open research problems relevant to linking sensitive databases. The appendices provide pointers and describe freely available, open-source software systems that allow the linkage of sensitive data, and provide further details about the evaluations presented. A companion Web site at https://dmm.anu.edu.au/lsdbook2020 provides additional material and Python programs used in the book. This book is mainly written for applied scientists, researchers, and advanced practitioners in governments, industry, and universities who are concerned with developing, implementing, and deploying systems and tools to share sensitive information in administrative, commercial, or medical databases. The Book describes how linkage methods work and how to evaluate their performance. It covers all the major concepts and methods and also discusses practical matters such as computational efficiency, which are critical if the methods are to be used in practice - and it does all this in a highly accessible way! David J. Hand, Imperial College, London.

Tackle the real-world complexities of modern machine learning with innovative, cutting-edge, techniques About This Book Fully-coded working examples using a wide range of machine learning libraries and tools, including Python, R, Julia, and Spark Comprehensive practical solutions taking you into the future of machine learning Go a step further and integrate your machine learning projects with Hadoop Who This Book Is For This book has been created for data scientists who want to see machine learning in action and explore its real-world application. With guidance on everything from the fundamentals of machine learning and predictive analytics to the latest innovations set to lead the big data revolution into the future, this is an unmissable resource for anyone dedicated to tackling current big data challenges. Knowledge of programming (Python and R) and mathematics is advisable if you want to get started immediately. What You Will Learn Implement a wide range of algorithms and techniques for tackling complex data Get to grips with some of the most powerful languages in data science, including R, Python, and Julia Harness the capabilities of Spark and Hadoop to manage and process data successfully Apply the appropriate machine learning technique to address real-world problems Get acquainted with Deep learning and find out how neural networks are being used at the cutting-edge of machine learning Explore the future of machine learning and dive deeper into polyglot persistence, semantic data, and more In Detail Finding meaning in increasingly larger and more complex datasets is a growing demand of the modern world. Machine learning and predictive analytics have become the most important approaches to uncover data gold mines. Machine learning uses complex algorithms to make improved predictions of outcomes based on historical patterns and the behaviour of data sets. Machine learning can deliver dynamic insights into trends, patterns, and relationships within data, immensely valuable to business growth and development. This book explores an extensive range of machine learning techniques uncovering hidden tricks and tips for several types of data using practical and real-world examples. While machine learning can be highly theoretical, this book offers a refreshing hands-on approach without losing sight of the underlying principles. Inside, a full exploration of the various algorithms gives you high-quality guidance so you can begin to see just how effective machine learning is at tackling contemporary challenges of big data. This is the only book you need to implement a whole suite of open source tools, frameworks, and languages in machine learning. We will cover the leading data science languages, Python and R, and the underrated but powerful Julia, as well as a range of other big data platforms including Spark, Hadoop, and Mahout. Practical Machine Learning is an essential resource for the modern data scientists who want to get to grips with its real-world application. With this book, you will not only learn the fundamentals of machine learning but dive deep into the complexities of real world data before moving on to using Hadoop and its wider ecosystem of tools to process and manage your structured and unstructured data. You will explore different machine learning techniques for both supervised and unsupervised learning; from decision trees to Naive Bayes classifiers and linear and clustering methods, you will learn strategies for a truly advanced approach to the statistical analysis of data. The book also explores the cutting-edge advancements in machine learning, with worked examples and guidance on deep learning and reinforcement learning, providing you with practical demonstrations and samples that help take the theory–and mystery–out of even the most advanced machine learning methodologies. Style and approach A practical data science tutorial designed to give you an insight into the practical application of machine learning, this book takes you through complex concepts and tasks in an accessible way. Featuring information on a wide range of data science techniques, Practical Machine Learning is a comprehensive data science resource.