dwelly@saddle-lk.cs.UAlberta.CA (Andrew Dwelly) (04/24/91)
comp.ai comp.ai.neural-net comp.database can.ai Readers of this group may be interested to hear that we shall shortly be releasing some unusual neural net software on the net. In the meanwhile it is availble by anonymous FTP from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241]. Applications we have tried up to now include: Land Use Classification Census Analysis Prosthesis control ...and a number of pattern recognition tasks such as OCR. We feel that the algorithms are suitable for large scale data analysis (hence the crossposting to comp.database), and are now searching for other industrial and business applications. The algorithm is a radical departure from normal neural-net techniques because it is based on the synthesis of an Adaptive Logic Network (ALN). In the process of learning, the system constructs a boolean digital circuit to perform the task. Training is rapid, and the execution of the resulting network is extremely fast (and could easily be turned into hardware for even more speed). The software includes a library of routines for the "C" programmer, a small language for data analysis, documentation (in TeX) and some examples. Why are we releasing it ? We are hoping for a wider group of users, comments on the existing software, and partners for future developments. Please send all mail on the subject to: arms@cs.ualberta.ca or dwelly@cs.ualberta.ca Bill Armstrong. Andrew Dwelly. Rolf Manderscheid. ****************************************************************************** Andy Dwelly : dwelly@cs.ualberta.ca, Tel: 403-492-7591 !@#$%$#, %^&*%, - Listen, who swears ? Christopher Robin has fallen downstairs. ****************************************************************************** -- ****************************************************************************** Andy Dwelly : dwelly@cs.ualberta.ca, Tel: 403-492-7591 !@#$%$#, %^&*%, - Listen, who swears ? Christopher Robin has fallen downstairs. ******************************************************************************
dwelly@saddle-lk.cs.UAlberta.CA (Andrew Dwelly) (04/24/91)
comp.ai comp.ai.neural-net comp.database can.ai Readers of this group may be interested to hear that we shall shortly be releasing some unusual neural net software on the net. In the meanwhile it is availble by anonymous FTP from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241]. Applications we have tried up to now include: Land Use Classification Census Analysis Prosthesis control ...and a number of pattern recognition tasks such as OCR. We feel that the algorithms are suitable for large scale data analysis (hence the crossposting to comp.database), and are now searching for other industrial and business applications. The algorithm is a radical departure from normal neural-net techniques because it is based on the synthesis of an Adaptive Logic Network (ALN). In the process of learning, the system constructs a boolean digital circuit to perform the task. Training is rapid, and the execution of the resulting network is extremely fast (and could easily be turned into hardware for even more speed). The software includes a library of routines for the "C" programmer, a small language for data analysis, documentation (in TeX) and some examples. Why are we releasing it ? We are hoping for a wider group of users, comments on the existing software, and partners for future developments. Please send all mail on the subject to: arms@cs.ualberta.ca or dwelly@cs.ualberta.ca Bill Armstrong. Andrew Dwelly. Rolf Manderscheid. -- ****************************************************************************** Andy Dwelly : dwelly@cs.ualberta.ca, Tel: 403-492-7591 !@#$%$#, %^&*%, - Listen, who swears ? Christopher Robin has fallen downstairs. ******************************************************************************
mikew@cutthroat.cs.washington.edu (Mike Williamson) (04/24/91)
In article <1991Apr23.211210.29372@cs.UAlberta.CA> dwelly@saddle-lk.cs.UAlberta.CA (Andrew Dwelly) writes: >The algorithm is a radical departure from normal neural-net techniques >because it is based on the synthesis of an Adaptive Logic Network (ALN). >In the process of learning, the system constructs a boolean digital circuit >to perform the task. Training is rapid, and the execution of the resulting >network is extremely fast (and could easily be turned into hardware for >even more speed). Wait. If the algorithm constructs a boolean digital circuit, how is it related to neural nets? Many traditional inductive learning algorithms produce a "concept", which is often expressed as, e.g., a restricted conjunctive-normal-form boolean expression. No real trick to make a circuit from that. No wonder training is rapid, if you have departed so radically from neural nets as to have a standard inductive learning algorithm. -Mike
arms@cs.UAlberta.CA (Bill Armstrong) (04/26/91)
mikew@cutthroat.cs.washington.edu (Mike Williamson) writes: >In article <1991Apr23.211210.29372@cs.UAlberta.CA> dwelly@saddle-lk.cs.UAlberta.CA (Andrew Dwelly) writes: >>The algorithm is a radical departure from normal neural-net techniques >>because it is based on the synthesis of an Adaptive Logic Network (ALN). >>In the process of learning, the system constructs a boolean digital circuit >>to perform the task. Training is rapid, and the execution of the resulting >>network is extremely fast (and could easily be turned into hardware for >>even more speed). >Wait. If the algorithm constructs a boolean digital circuit, how is >it related to neural nets? Many traditional inductive learning >algorithms produce a "concept", which is often expressed as, e.g., a >restricted conjunctive-normal-form boolean expression. No real trick >to make a circuit from that. We call it a neural net simulation because it fits the usual neural net paradigm (as outlined on page 22 of the book "Neurocomputing" by Robert Hecht-Nielsen). The elements are small circuits that have a local state and the learning of complex functions results from a solution to the "credit assignment" problem, which is called "heuristic responsibility". In fact this is a solution to a problem that people have been talking about for a long time: how to make MULTILAYER NETWORKS OF PERCEPTRONS adapt! Each node, which can realize any one of the four linear-threshold functions AND, OR, LEFT (i.e. LEFT(x,y) = x), RIGHT, is just a little perceptron with possible weight values 0 and 1, acting on boolean inputs. The goal is to have a circuit which can perform pattern-recognition tasks. This has been tried out on OCR and turns out to be very immune to noise. The reason for this is the inherent property of binary trees of the above function types to have an output which is unlikely to change if a some inputs are perturbed. >No wonder training is rapid, if you have departed so radically from >neural nets as to have a standard inductive learning algorithm. Sorry, the training is rapid BECAUSE IT'S BASED ON LOGIC, NOT ARITHMETIC. With logic one can take advantage of PARSIMONY (Meisel's term) or lazy evaluation. Briefly, if an element is an AND gate, and if one of its inputs has been determined to be a 0, then there is no need to evaluate the other input. This gives orders of magnitude speedup not only in software simulations but also in any system which is not 100% parallel. Since all economically feasible systems for execution of very large neural networks will reuse the same hardware for different parts of the computation, parsimony is important in hardware systems too. It would be interesting to see what a standard inductive learning system would do on the kind of problems we have been working on, like taking 5,000 20-bit vectors, randomly created, choosing four fixed bit positions as "control leads" and defining the desired output as the value of the non-control lead with index determined by the values of the four control leads. This is a partial "one-of-sixteen" multiplexer function, defined by samples. Although the net sees only 5000 of the 1048576 possible inputs, it generalizes correctly to 98.6% of them. Of course, there is no restriction on the function type a priori. Anyway, why not try it out via anonymous ftp from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241] in pub/atree.tar.Z You have to set type binary, of course. Thanks for your comments. Sorry for the delay in replying, our server was overloaded and the first try bombed. Bill Armstrong -- *************************************************** Prof. William W. Armstrong, Computing Science Dept. University of Alberta; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H1 arms@cs.ualberta.ca Tel(403)492 2374 FAX 492 1071