Training a support vector machine (SVM) leads to a quadratic optimization problem with bound constraints and one linear equality constraint. Despite the fact that this type of problem is well understood, there are many issues to be considered in designing an SVM learner. In particular, for large learning tasks with many training examples, off-the-shelf optimization techniques for general quadratic programs quickly become intractable in their memory and time requirements. SV M light1 is an implementation of an SVM learner which addresses the problem of large tasks. This chapter presents algorithmic and computational results developed for SV M light V2.0, which make large-scale SVM training more practical. The results give guidelines for the application of SVMs to large domains.

the fact that a collection of chapters can never be as homogeneous as a book conceived by a single person. We have tried to compensate for this by the selection and refereeing process of the submissions. In addition, we have written an introductory chapter describing the SV algorithm in some detail (chapter 1), and added a roadmap (chapter 2) which describes the actual contributions which are to follow in chapters 3 through 20. Bernhard Scholkopf, Christopher J.C. Burges, Alexander J. Smola Berlin, Holmdel, July 1998/08/25 16:31 1 Introduction to Support Vector Learning The goal of this chapter, which describes the central ideas of SV learning, is twofold. First, we want to provide an introduction for readers unfamiliar with this field. Second, this introduction serves as a source of the basic equations for the chapters of this book. For more exhaustive treatments, we refer the interested reader to Vapnik (1995); Scholkopf (1997); Burges (1998). 1.1

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