10.1 Support Vector Machines

Support vector machines (SVMs) are supervised machine learning (ML) models used to solve regression and classification problems. However, it is widely used for solving classification problems. The main goal of SVM is to segregate the n-dimensional space into labels or classes by defining a decision boundary or hyperplanes. In this chapter, we shall explore SVM for solving classification problems.

10.1.1 SVM Working Principle

SVM Working Principle | Parteek Bhatia, https://youtu.be/UhzBKrIKPyE

To understand the working principle of the SVM classifier, we will take a standard ML problem where we want a machine to distinguish between a peach and an apple based on their size and color.

Let us suppose the size of the fruit is represented on the X-axis and the color of the fruit is on the Y-axis. The distribution of the dataset of apple and peach is shown in Figure 10.1.

To classify it, we must provide the machine with some sample stock of fruits and label each of the fruits in the stock as an “apple” or “peach”. For example, we have a labeled dataset of some 100 fruits with corresponding labels, i.e., “apple” or “peach”. When this data is fed into a machine, it will analyze these fruits and train itself. Once the training is completed, if some new fruit comes into the stock, the machine will classify whether it is an “apple” or a “peach”.

Most of the traditional ML algorithms would learn by observing the perfect apples and perfect peaches in the stock, i.e., they will train themselves by observing the ideal apples of stock (apples which are very much like apples in terms of their size and color) and the perfect peaches of stock (peaches which are very much like peaches in terms of their size and color). These standard samples are likely to be found in the heart of stock. The heart of the stock is shown in Figure 10.2.

This chapter examines the background to the conquest and occupation of the Lorraine and Savoy during the reign of the Sun King. It begins with a brief exploration of French Government policies on the eastern frontiers of the kingdom in this period, with the aim of identifying the priorities and mindset of the king and his ministers. The chapter seeks to establish the political, social, economic and cultural circumstances of the territories. The first three decades of Louis XIV's personal rule saw significant territorial additions to the kingdom of France. Peter Sahlins argued that natural frontiers were, in a way, pivotal to French frontier policy, 'not as boundaries but as passages'. Families of the ancienne chevalerie were an important link between Lorraine and France. Despite a brief, partial reconquest of Lorraine during the Frondes, Charles IV remained exiled and, for the second half of the 1650s, imprisoned by the Spanish.

When words and phrases combine together into whole clauses, the manner in which they combine can result in quite different meanings and in structural ambiguities that lead to lawsuits. Chapter 4 considers an “attachment ambiguity” in a false advertising suit, as in WE ARE PROVIDING GREAT REFRESHMENTS DURING THE SUPER BOWL AT CANDLESTICK PARK. The refreshments were not actually offered onsite at Candlestick Park, but at some distance from it. The ambiguity involves whether AT CANDLESTICK PARK modifies the verb, ‘We are providing at Candlestick Park great refreshments during the Super Bowl,’ or the noun phrase THE SUPER BOWL, in which case it is logically asserted only that the Super Bowl takes place there. In this latter attachment, questions of contextual inference and real-world knowledge then come into play and can still “implicate” that the services are also provided at Candlestick Park. More complex syntax, involving subordinate clauses and phrases that follow SUBJECT TO, resulted in a dispute over when or whether at all the prior condition for sale specified in this real-estate contract needed to be met. The subordinating conjunction ALTHOUGH and its “implicatures” were at the center of a libel suit in which unprofessional conduct by a lawyer and drinking to excess were alleged.

A reconsideration of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) that forecasts Jacques Derrida’s notion of spectrality as a viable theoretical lens for the Twenty-First Century, even as the spectral figure aids our reinterpretation of Joyce’s text. For Joyce’s corpus, central to Irish literary tradition, celebrates this impurity and offers us insight into contemporary postcolonial novelists’ motivations for and methods of reinvention.

This chapter explores the ways in which identity claims and identity fragmentation have played a significant role in reshaping the global political agenda. The disruptions to the post-Cold War international order and increased insecurity and political unrest have also impacted the way we debate and conceptualise identity. Globalisation and critiques of ‘identity politics’, however, have important effects for understanding the ‘politics of identity’ and the ways in which ideas about identity constitute not only subjects but states and organisations. This chapter examines some of the contours of these debates with a view to refocussing attention on the politics of identity, specifically regarding how identity works, and the effects (and affects) it produces.

Chapter V turns to the image and discusses first former art historical approaches in ancient Near Eastern studies to the narrative in the image. It then introduces W. Mitchell’s notion of text-image dialectic and Schriftbildlichkeit (pictorial notation). It makes a case for a semiotic approach informed by Gottfried Boehm’s notion of the deixis of the image to justify a narrative reading of the image in the process of reception. This narrative reading is informed by the interpictoriality of the image which is anchored in a stream of tradition as well as its intermediality with mythic narratives and ritual performance.

William Trevor's Felicia's Journey is a literary work which reflects how individual lives bear the imprint of the political, economic and cultural narratives and histories of their places of origin. This chapter argues that the novel transcends simplistic paradigms and embraces a much broader picture of humanity and inhumanity. It is undeniable that historical conflicts between Ireland and Britain are a significant presence in Felicia's Journey. William Trevor possesses a mastery of narrative technique which has been recognised by readers and reviewers alike for almost fifty years. Thwarted communications, withheld information recur not just as a motif in Trevor's plots, but also of his narrative technique, as his deft and canny characterisation of Joseph Ambrose Hilditch exemplifies. Where transparency and intimacy typify his representation of the main female characters, Felicia and Miss Calligary, and their pasts, concealment, ambiguity and piecemeal disclosure create opaque perceptions of Hilditch's world.

The movie trailer for Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999) advertises the film as 'choquant, provoquant, sexuel, pervers, troublant, lucide, sincere, sexuel, cruel, erotique, cru, excitant, agressif, tendre, libre, interdit'. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses Breillat's films in thematic groupings. It considers her three female coming-of-age films, Une vraie jeune fille, 36 fillette and A ma soeur!. The book describes Breillat's three movies about masculinity in crisis, Sale comme un ange, Parfait amour! and Breve traversee. It examines Tapage nocturne, Romance and Anatomie de l'enfer, the three films that Breillat has made about the sexual odysseys of adult women. It looks at Breillat's relation to and influence on other contemporary directors before turning to a discussion of her latest film, Une vieille maitresse.

The 1990s was Richard Attenborough's most prolific decade, directing four films with varying success. Despite all his efforts, Attenborough was unable to recapture the same degree of success he had enjoyed with Gandhi. One significant reason could be the change from the serious socio-political themes that had dominated Attenborough's productions, to one focusing on the people whose artistic talents held a particular personal interest for him, and, perhaps, less so for others. Of the four films two explore lives related to acting: Chaplin and Grey Owl. Chaplin focuses on the comic silent screen star, actor and director, Charles Chaplin. Grey Owl recounts the 'pseudo' life 'acted' by Archibald Belaney, an Englishman who masqueraded as a half-bred Native American Indian in Canada. The contradictions between the public and perceived identities which Grey Owl explored were also a significant factor in the film's lack of appeal to both critics and audiences.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores civilian middle-class men's wartime experiences and examines how the war affected lives and identities. It argues that the war began to affect middle-class lives in very clear, sometimes unexpected and often unpleasant ways. The book also explores the interplay between experience and memory which is especially important in relation to the issue of war service. It focuses onto middle-class men's involvement in volunteer activities on the home front, including service in organised, 'public' bodies such as Volunteer Training Corps and special constables, and 'private' activities like allotment keeping and vegetable growing. The book assesses the ways in which middle-class men negotiated their roles as wartime consumers. It explores the impact of widely held notions of work appropriate to a society at war.

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Emma (1815) share one easily overlooked but strikingly common aspect: in both, Austen describes privileged characters collecting people for their entertainment. Emma, the eponymous heroine of the 1815 novel, ‘collects’ impoverished women for her own amusement and that of her father, whereas in Sense and Sensibility, while his wife fills her time with collecting objects, Sir John’s ‘satisfaction in society was much more real’, focusing instead on ‘collecting’ young people who drive away the boredom country life would otherwise pose for him. While this description is arguably sinister, seeming to take agency away from those who are collected – almost always single women on the margins of gentility – the relationship in question is more ambiguous. Those less privileged benefit from the protection of the ‘collectors’ and, by allowing themselves to be ‘collected,’ are integrated into the neighbourhood in which they live. By considering this relationship, this chapter poses the question: What can Austen’s representation of the collector and the collected tell us about wealth, class, and gender in this decade?