ENTHRAL’09

​ PAPER PRESENTATION ON THE TOPIC:

NEURAL NETWORKS

​ SUBMITTED BY,
T.G.SREEDEVI
V.DIVYA
Department: Information Technology
College: KLN​ ​College of engineering

ABSTRACT

The aim in doing this paper is to give a clear description about the neural networks.
A neural network is a type of ​artificial intelligence​ that attempts to imitate the way
a human brain works. Rather than using a ​digital​ model, in which all computations
manipulate zeros and ones, a neural network works by creating connections
between processing elements, the ​computer​ equivalent of neurons. The
organization and weights of the connections determine the ​output​. The main
purpose of neural networks is to reduce our time of work and strain because the
concept behind Neural networks are particularly effective for predicting events
when the networks have a large ​database​ of prior examples to draw
​ This has a wide application in medicine, finance, sales and marketing, HR
management which​ ​is discussed in this topic and further improvement of these
technologies is provided in this paper.
From this we can get a clear idea about neural networks, its working, structure,
uses, advantages and disadvantages and hence it can be implemented in our day to
day life to reduce our workload.

NEURAL NETWORKS
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, the term ​neural network​ had been used to refer to a network or circuit of
biological neurons​. The modern usage of the term often refers to ​artificial neural networks​,
which are composed of ​artificial neurons​ or nodes. Thus the term has two distinct usages:
Biological neural networks​ are made up of real biological neurons that are connected or
functionally related in the ​peripheral nervous system​ or the ​central nervous system​. In the
field of ​neuroscience​, they are often identified as groups of neurons that perform a specific
physiological function in laboratory analysis.
Artificial neural networks​ are made up of interconnecting artificial neurons (programming
constructs that mimic the properties of biological neurons). Artificial neural networks may
either be used to gain an understanding of biological neural networks, or for solving artificial
intelligence problems without necessarily creating a model of a real biological system. The
real, biological nervous system is highly complex and includes some features that may seem
superfluous based on an understanding of artificial networks.
Artificial intelligence​ ​technique​ that mimics the ​operation​ of the human brain (nerves and
neurons), and ​comprises​ of densely interconnected ​computer​ ​processors​ ​working
simultaneously (in ​parallel​). A key ​feature​ of neural networks is that they are programmed to
'learn' by sifting ​data​ repeatedly, looking for ​relationships​ to ​build​ ​mathematical models​, and
automatically​ correcting these ​models​ to refine them continuously. Also called ​neural net​.
WHAT IS MEANT BY NEURAL NETWORKS?
​An artificial neural network is computer program that can recognize patterns in a given
collection of data and produce a model for that data. It resembles brain in two respects
1. Knowledge is acquired by the network through learning process (trial and error).
2. Interneuron connection strengths known as synaptic weights are used to store the
knowledge.
The true power and advantage of neural networks lies in their ability to represent both linear and
non-linear relationships and in their ability to learn these relationships directly from the data
being modeled. Traditional linear models are simply inadequate when it comes to modeling data
that contains non-linear characteristics.
STRUCTURE OF A NEURAL NETWORK
 ​ANN is a set of processing elements (PEs) and connection with adjustable strengths
(weights).

WHY WE USE NEURAL NETWORKS?

Neural networks, with their remarkable ability to derive meaning from complicated or imprecise
data, can be used to extract patterns and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by either
humans or other computer techniques. A trained neural network can be thought of as an "expert"
in the category of information it has been given to analyse. This expert can then be used to
provide projections given new situations of interest and answer "what if" questions.
Other advantages include:
1. Adaptive learning: An ability to learn how to do tasks based on the data given for training
or initial experience.
2. Self-Organisation: An ANN can create its own organisation or representation of the
information it receives during learning time.
3. Real Time Operation: ANN computations may be carried out in parallel, and special
hardware devices are being designed and manufactured which take advantage of this
capability.
4. Fault Tolerance via Redundant Information Coding: Partial destruction of a network leads
to the corresponding degradation of performance. However, some network capabilities
may be retained even with major network damage.
ARCHITECTURE OF NEURAL NETWORKS:
Feed-Forward networks:
​ eed-forward ANNs allow signals to travel one way only; from input to output. There
F
is no feedback (loops) i.e. the output of any layer does not affect that same layer. Feed-forward
ANNs tend to be straight forward networks that associate inputs with outputs. They are
extensively used in pattern recognition. This type of organization is also referred to as bottom-up
or top-down.
 Feed-forward networks have the following characteristics:
1. Perceptrons are arranged in layers, with the first layer taking in inputs and the last layer
producing outputs. The middle layers have no connection with the external world, and
hence are called hidden layers.
2. Each perceptron in one layer is connected to every perceptron on the next layer. Hence
information is constantly "fed forward" from one layer to the next. And this explains why
these networks are called feed-forward networks.
3. There is no connection among perceptrons in the same layer

Feedback networks
Feedback networks (figure 1) can have signals travelling in both directions by introducing loops
in the network. Feedback networks are very powerful and can get extremely complicated.
Feedback networks are dynamic; their 'state' is changing continuously until they reach an
equilibrium point. They remain at the equilibrium point until the input changes and a new
equilibrium needs to be found. Feedback architectures are also referred to as interactive or
recurrent, although the latter term is often used to denote feedback connections in single-layer
organisations.

Network layers
The commonest type of artificial neural network consists of three groups, or layers, of units: a
layer of "​input​" units is connected to a layer of "​hidden​" units, which is connected to a layer of
"output​" units. (see Figure 4.1)
The activity of the input units represents the raw information that is fed into the network.
The activity of each hidden unit is determined by the activities of the input units and the
weights on the connections between the input and the hidden units.
The behaviour of the output units depends on the activity of the hidden units and the weights
between the hidden and output units.
This simple type of network is interesting because the hidden units are free to construct their own
representations of the input. The weights between the input and hidden units determine when
each hidden unit is active, and so by modifying these weights, a hidden unit can choose what it
represents.
We also distinguish single-layer and multi-layer architectures. The single-layer organisation, in
which all units are connected to one another, constitutes the most general case and is of more
potential computational power than hierarchically structured multi-layer organisations. In
multi-layer networks, units are often numbered by layer, instead of following a global
numbering.
Advantages and disadvantages
The major advantages and disadvantages of neural networks in modeling applications are as
follows:

Advantages

· There is no need to assume an underlying data distribution such as usually is done in statistical
modeling.
· Neural networks are applicable to multivariate non-linear problems.
· The transformations of the variables are automated in the computational process.

Disadvantages

· Minimizing overfitting requires a great deal of computational effort.

· The individual relations between the input variables and the output variables are not developed
by engineering judgment so that the model tends to be a black box or input/output table without
analytical basis.
· The sample size has to be large.
The disadvantages appear to outweigh the advantages, particularly in view of the black box
effect.

APPLICATIONS
Neural networks in medicine
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) are currently a 'hot' research area in medicine and it is
believed that they will receive extensive application to biomedical systems in the next few years.
At the moment, the research is mostly on modelling parts of the human body and recognising
diseases from various scans (e.g. cardiograms, CAT scans, ultrasonic scans, etc.).
Neural networks are ideal in recognising diseases using scans since there is no need to provide a
specific algorithm on how to identify the disease. Neural networks learn by example so the
details of how to recognise the disease are not needed. What is needed is a set of examples that
are representative of all the variations of the disease. The quantity of examples is not as
important as the 'quantity'. The examples need to be selected very carefully if the system is to
perform reliably and efficiently.

Instant Physician
An application developed in the mid-1980s called the "instant physician" trained an
autoassociative memory neural network to store a large number of medical records, each of
which includes information on symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment for a particular case. After
training, the net can be presented with input consisting of a set of symptoms; it will then find the
full stored pattern that represents the "best" diagnosis and treatment.

NEURAL NETWORKS IN FINANCE

 Credit Worthiness​ - decide whether an applicant for a loan is a good or bad credit risk.
Input data:​ applicant's personal data, income, expenses, previous credit history, etc.
 Credit Rating​ - assign credit ratings to companies or individuals based on their financial state.
Input data:​ current financial state indicators and past financial performance of a company or
individual.
 Bankruptcy prediction​ - classify a company as potential bankruptcy.
Input data:​ company characteristics and business ratios, such as working capital/total assets,
retained earnings/total assets, earnings before interest and taxes/total assets, market value of
equity/total debt, and sales/total assets.
 Property Appraisal​ - evaluate real estate, automobiles, machinery and other property.
Input data:​ property parameters, environment conditions as well as appropriate demographic,
ecological, industrial and other factors.
 Fraud Detection​ - detect and automatically decline fraudulent insurance claims, client
transactions, and taxes.
 Input data:​ transaction parameters, applicant's information and other data of past incidents.
NEURAL NETWORKS IN SALES AND MARKETING
Sales Forecasting​ - predict future sales based on historical information about previous
marketing and sales activities.
Input data:​ historical data about marketing budget, number of ads, special offers and other
factors affecting sales.
Targeted Marketing​ - reduce costs by targeting a particular marketing campaign to the group of
people which have the highest response rate. Avoid wasting money on unlikely targets.
Input data:​ information about customers and their response rate.
Service Usage Forecasting​ - forecast the number of service calls, customer transactions,
customer arrivals, reservations or restaurant covers (patrons) in order to effectively schedule
enough staff to handle the workload.
Input data:​ season, day-of-week, hour of the day, special events in the city/area, marketing
budget, promotional events, weather, etc.
Retail Margins Forecasting​ - forecast the behavior of margins in the future to determine the
effects of price changes at one level on returns at the other.
Input data:​ retail prices, expenditures at the retail level, marketing costs, past margin values,
price variability and other market characteristics.
NEURAL NETWORKS IN HR MANAGEMENT
Employee Selection and Hiring​ - predict on which job an applicant will achieve the best job
performance.
Input data:​ information about an applicant: personal information, previous jobs, educational
levels, previous performance, etc.
Employee Retention​ - identify potential employees who are likely to stay with the organization
for a significant amount of time based on data about an applicant.
Input data:​ applicant's hours of availability, previous jobs, educational levels and other routine
information.
Staff Scheduling​ - predict staff requirements for restaurants, retail stores, police stations, banks,
etc.
Input data:​ time of year, day of week, pay-days, holidays, weather, etc.
Personnel Profiling​ - forecast successful completion of training program; identify employees
most suitable for a certain task.
Input data:​ background characteristics of individuals
Recent advances of NNs include:
Integration of fuzzy logic into neural networks
● Fuzzy logic is a type of logic that recognizes more than simple true and false values, hence
better simulating the real world. For example, the statement today is sunny might be 100%
true if there are no clouds, 80% true if there are a few clouds, 50% true if it's hazy, and 0%
true if rains all day. Hence, it takes into account concepts like -usually, somewhat, and
sometimes.
● Fuzzy logic and neural networks have been integrated for uses as diverse as automotive
engineering, applicant screening for jobs, the control of a crane, and the monitoring of
glaucoma.
Hardware specialized for neural networks
● The primary benefit of directly encoding neural networks onto chips or specialized analog
devices is SPEED!
● NN hardware currently runs in a few niche areas, such as those areas where very high
performance is required (e.g. high energy physics) and in embedded applications of
simple, hardwired networks (e.g. voice recognition).
● Many NNs today use less than 100 neurons and only need occasional training. In these
situations, software simulation is usually found sufficient

Improvement of existing technologies

● All current NN technologies will most likely be vastly improved upon in the future.
Everything from handwriting and speech recognition to stock market prediction will
become more sophisticated as researchers develop better training methods and network
architectures.
 NNs might, in the future, allow:
○ robots that can see, feel, and predict the world around them
○ improved stock prediction
○ common usage of self-driving cars
○ composition of music
○ handwritten documents to be automatically transformed into formatted word
processing documents
○ trends found in the human genome to aid in the understanding of the data compiled
by the Human Genome Project
○ self-diagnosis of medical problems using neural networks
○ and much more!

Conclusion
The computing world has a lot to gain fron neural networks. Their ability to learn by example
makes them very flexible and powerful. Furthermore there is no need to devise an algorithm in
order to perform a specific task; i.e. there is no need to understand the internal mechanisms of
that task. They are also very well suited for real time systems because of their fast responseand
computational times which are due to their parallel architecture.
Neural networks also contribute to other areas of research such as neurology and psychology.
They are regularly used to model parts of living organisms and to investigate the internal
mechanisms of the brain.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of neural networks is the possibility that some day 'conscious'
networks might be produced. There is a number of scientists arguing that consciousness is a
'mechanical' property and that 'conscious' neural networks are a realistic possibility.
Finally, I would like to state that even though neural networks have a huge potential we will only
get the best of them when they are integrated with computing, AI, fuzzy logic and related
subjects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

● Christos Stergiou and Dimitrios Siganos

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol4/cs11/report.html
● Wikipedia ​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network
● NeuroDimension http://www.nd.com/apps/business.html