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An accessible introduction and essential reference for an approach to machine learning that creates highly accurate prediction rules by combining many weak and inaccurate ones.Boosting is an approach to machine learning based on the idea of creating a highly accurate predictor by combining many weak and inaccurate “rules of thumb.” A remarkably rich theory has evolved around boosting, with connections to a range of topics, including statistics, game theory, convex optimization, and information geometry. Boosting algorithms have also enjoyed practical success in such fields as biology, vision, and speech processing. At various times in its history, boosting has been perceived as mysterious, controversial, even paradoxical.This book, written by the inventors of the method, brings together, organizes, simplifies, and substantially extends two decades of research on boosting, presenting both theory and applications in a way that is accessible to readers from diverse backgrounds while also providing an authoritative reference for advanced researchers. With its introductory treatment of all material and its inclusion of exercises in every chapter, the book is appropriate for course use as well.The book begins with a general introduction to machine learning algorithms and their analysis; then explores the core theory of boosting, especially its ability to generalize; examines some of the myriad other theoretical viewpoints that help to explain and understand boosting; provides practical extensions of boosting for more complex learning problems; and finally presents a number of advanced theoretical topics. Numerous applications and practical illustrations are offered throughout.

This volume contains papers presented at the 19th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (ALT 2008), which was held in Budapest, Hungary during October 13–16, 2008. The conference was co-located with the 11th - ternational Conference on Discovery Science (DS 2008). The technical program of ALT 2008 contained 31 papers selected from 46 submissions, and 5 invited talks. The invited talks were presented in joint sessions of both conferences. ALT 2008 was the 19th in the ALT conference series, established in Japan in 1990. The series Analogical and Inductive Inference is a predecessor of this series: it was held in 1986, 1989 and 1992, co-located with ALT in 1994, and s- sequently merged with ALT. ALT maintains its strong connections to Japan, but has also been held in other countries, such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Sin- pore, Spain and the USA. The ALT conference series is supervised by its Steering Committee: Naoki Abe (IBM T. J.