Note for Machine Learning - ML By New Swaroop

Topics ( 2 )

Text from page-1

Lecture Notes | 15CS73 – ML | Module 3: Artificial Neural Networks Module-3: Artificial Neural Networks 1. Introduction Neural network learning methods provide a robust approach to approximating real-valued, discrete-valued, and vector-valued target functions. For certain types of problems, such as learning to interpret complex real-world sensor data, artificial neural networks are among the most effective learning methods currently known. For example, the Back-propagation algorithm described in this module has proven surprisingly successful in many practical problems such as learning to recognize handwritten characters, learning to recognize spoken words and learning to recognize faces. Biological Motivation The study of artificial neural networks (ANNs) has been inspired in part by the observation that biological learning systems are built of very complex webs of interconnected neurons. In rough analogy, artificial neural networks are built out of a densely interconnected set of simple units, where each unit takes a number of real-valued inputs (possibly the outputs of other units) and produces a single real-valued output (which may become the input to many other units). To develop a feel for this analogy, let us consider a few facts from neurobiology. The human brain, for example, is estimated to contain a densely interconnected network of approximately 1011 neurons, each connected, on average, to 104 others. Neuron activity is typically excited or inhibited through connections to other neurons. The fastest neuron switching times are known to be on the order of 10-3 seconds, quite slow compared to computer switching speeds of 10-10 seconds. Yet humans are able to make surprisingly complex decisions, surprisingly quickly. For example, it requires approximately 10-1 seconds to visually recognize your mother. Notice that the sequence of neuron firings that can take place during this 10-1 second interval cannot possibly be longer than a few hundred steps, given the switching speed of single neurons. This observation has led many to speculate that the information-processing abilities of biological neural systems must follow from highly parallel processes operating on representations that are distributed over many neurons. One motivation for ANN systems is to capture this kind of highly parallel computation based on distributed representations. Most ANN software runs on sequential machines emulating distributed processes, although faster versions of the algorithms have also been implemented on highly parallel machines and on specialized hardware designed specifically for ANN applications. While ANNs are loosely motivated by biological neural systems, there are many complexities to biological neural systems that are not modeled by ANNs, and many features of the ANNs we discuss here are known to be inconsistent with biological systems. For example, we consider here ANNs whose individual units output a single constant value, whereas biological neurons output a complex time series of spikes.

Text from page-2

Lecture Notes | 15CS73 – ML | Module 3: Artificial Neural Networks 2. Neural Network Representations A prototypical example of ANN learning is provided by Pomerleau's (1993) system ALVINN, which uses a learned ANN to steer an autonomous vehicle driving at normal speeds on public highways. The input to the neural network is a 30x32 grid of pixel intensities obtained from a forward-pointed camera mounted on the vehicle. The network output is the direction in which the vehicle is steered. The ANN is trained to mimic the observed steering commands of a human driving the vehicle for approximately 5 minutes. ALVINN has used its learned networks to successfully drive at speeds up to 70 miles per hour and for distances of 90 miles on public highways (driving in the left lane of a divided public highway, with other vehicles present). Figure 4.1 illustrates the neural network representation used in one version of the ALVINN system, and illustrates the kind of representation typical of many ANN systems.

Text from page-3

Lecture Notes | 15CS73 – ML | Module 3: Artificial Neural Networks The network is shown on the left side of the figure, with the input camera image depicted below it. Each node (i.e., circle) in the network diagram corresponds to the output of a single network unit, and the lines entering the node from below are its inputs. As can be seen, there are four units that receive inputs directly from all of the 30 x 32 pixels in the image. These are called "hidden" units because their output is available only within the network and is not available as part of the global network output. Each of these four hidden units computes a single real-valued output based on a weighted combination of its 960 inputs. These hidden unit outputs are then used as inputs to a second layer of 30 "output" units. Each output unit corresponds to a particular steering direction, and the output values of these units determine which steering direction is recommended most strongly. The diagrams on the right side of the figure depict the learned weight values associated with one of the four hidden units in this ANN. The large matrix of black and white boxes on the lower right depicts the weights from the 30x32 pixel inputs into the hidden unit. Here, a white box indicates a positive weight, a black box a negative weight, and the size of the box indicates the weight magnitude. The smaller rectangular diagram directly above the large matrix shows the weights from this hidden unit to each of the 30 output units. The network structure of ALYINN is typical of many ANNs. Here the individual units are interconnected in layers that form a directed acyclic graph. In general, ANNs can be graphs with many types of structures-acyclic or cyclic, directed or undirected. This module will focus on the most common and practical ANN approaches, which are based on the backpropagation algorithm. The backpropagation algorithm assumes the network is a fixed structure that corresponds to a directed graph, possibly containing cycles. Learning corresponds to choosing a weight value for each edge in the graph. Although certain types of cycles are allowed, the vast majority of practical applications involve acyclic feed-forward networks, similar to the network structure used by ALVINN. 3. Appropriate Problems for Neural Network Learning ANN learning is well-suited to problems in which the training data corresponds to noisy, complex sensor data, such as inputs from cameras and microphones. It is also applicable to problems for which more symbolic representations are often used, such as the decision tree learning tasks. In these cases, ANN and decision tree learning often produce results of comparable accuracy. The back-propagation algorithm is the most commonly used ANN learning technique. It is appropriate for problems with the following characteristics:  Instances are represented by many attribute-value pairs. The target function to be learned is defined over instances that can be described by a vector of predefined features, such as the pixel values in the ALVINN example. These input attributes may be highly correlated or independent of one another. Input values can be any real values.  The target function output may be discrete-valued, real-valued, or a vector of several real- or discrete-valued attributes. For example, in the ALVINN system the output is a vector of 30 attributes, each corresponding to a recommendation regarding the steering direction. The value of each output is some real number between 0 and 1, which

Text from page-4

Lecture Notes | 15CS73 – ML | Module 3: Artificial Neural Networks in this case corresponds to the confidence in predicting the corresponding steering direction. We can also train a single network to output both the steering command and suggested acceleration, simply by concatenating the vectors that encode these two output predictions.  The training examples may contain errors. ANN learning methods are quite robust to noise in the training data.  Long training times are acceptable. Network training algorithms typically require longer training times than, say, decision tree learning algorithms. Training times can range from a few seconds to many hours, depending on factors such as the number of weights in the network, the number of training examples considered, and the settings of various learning algorithm parameters.  Fast evaluation of the learned target function may be required. Although ANN learning times are relatively long, evaluating the learned network, in order to apply it to a subsequent instance, is typically very fast. For example, ALVINN applies its neural network several times per second to continually update its steering command as the vehicle drives forward.  The ability of humans to understand the learned target function is not important. The weights learned by neural networks are often difficult for humans to interpret. Learned neural networks are less easily communicated to humans than learned rules. 4. Perceptrons One type of ANN system is based on a unit called a perceptron, illustrated in Figure given below. A perceptron takes a vector of real-valued inputs, calculates a linear combination of these inputs, then outputs a 1 if the result is greater than some threshold and -1 otherwise. More precisely, given inputs xl through x,, the output o(x1, . . . , x,) computed by the perceptron is where each wi is a real-valued constant, or weight, that determines the contribution of input xi to the perceptron output. Notice the quantity (-w0) is a threshold that the weighted combination of inputs wlxl + . . . + wnxn must surpass in order for the perceptron to output a 1.