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Machine learning is a type of statistics that places particular emphasis on the use of advanced computational algorithms. As computers become more powerful, and modern experimental methods in areas such as imaging generate vast bodies of data, machine learning is becoming ever more important for extracting reliable and meaningful relationships and for making accurate predictions. Key strands of modern machine learning grew out of attempts to understand how large numbers of interconnected, more or less neuron-like elements could learn to achieve behaviourally meaningful computations and to extract useful features from images or sound waves.