This is the fourth and final volume of papers from a series of workshops called "Computational Learning Theory and 'Natural' Learning Systems." The purpose of the workshops was to explore the emerging intersection of theoretical learning research and natural learning systems. The workshops drew researchers from three historically distinct styles of learning research: computational learning theory, neural networks, and machine learning (a subfield of AI).
Volume I of the series introduces the general focus of the workshops. Volume II looks at specific areas of interaction between theory and experiment. Volumes III and IV focus on key areas of learning systems that have developed recently. Volume III looks at the problem of "Selecting Good Models." The present volume, Volume IV, looks at ways of "Making Learning Systems Practical." The editors divide the twenty-one contributions into four sections. The first three cover critical problem areas: 1) scaling up from small problems to realistic ones with large input dimensions, 2) increasing efficiency and robustness of learning methods, and 3) developing strategies to obtain good generalization from limited or small data samples. The fourth section discusses examples of real-world learning systems.