[comp.ai.neural-nets] competitive layer size ref wanted

defrance@uni2a.unige.ch (03/26/91)

Hello world.

I need to find any reference to studies about the optimal size of the 
competitive layer in a Kohonen network; particularly I'd like to know which 
relationship exists between the size of the competitive layer, the size 
of the input layer and the number of patterns.

The problem is the classification of 2D electrophoresis gels.
I *think* that this problem is unpractical for Kohonen nets (it works quite
well with backprop), because the size of the patterns is typical ~3000 (real
numbers), there is a lot of random or noisy spots (probably +90%), and between
20 and 100 gels would be used for training. Even if there weren't theoretical
problems with this kind of data, more than ~10 units in the competitive layer
would be unmanageable (in time).

That's for the empirical reasons why I believe that Kohonen is not suited to 
this application. The problem is that this work (the application of NN
to the classification of bi-dimensional electrophoresis) is the biggest part 
of one of my students master thesis, and I like to have something more formal
for him.

Any pointer? remarks?

Thank you in advance.

- massimo 

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