International Journal of Neural Systems

In this paper, we propose self-organization algorithm of spiking neural network (SNN) applicable to autonomous robot for generation of adoptive and goal-directed behavior. First, we formulated a SNN model whose inputs and outputs were analog and the hidden unites are interconnected each other. Next, we implemented it into a miniature mobile robot Khepera. In order to see whether or not a solution(s) for the given task(s) exists with the SNN, the robot was evolved with the genetic algorithm in the environment. The robot acquired the obstacle avoidance and navigation task successfully, exhibiting the presence of the solution. After that, a self-organization algorithm based on a use-dependent synaptic potentiation and depotentiation at synapses of input layer to hidden layer and of hidden layer to output layer was formulated and implemented into the robot. In the environment, the robot incrementally organized the network and the given tasks were successfully performed. The time needed to acquire the desired adoptive and goal-directed behavior using the proposed self-organization method was much less than that with the genetic evolution, approximately one fifth.

We constructed a connectionist model with multilayer perceptron networks for the simulation of word production errors in the Finnish language. Such errors occur as slips of the tongue in healthy subjects and even more often in aphasic patients suffering from brain damage. Word production errors are of theoretical interest as they open an avenue to inner workings of the language production system. Here we present our coding schemes for semantic and phoneme information of words, investigate the general properties of the model, and compare the results of the model against empirical naming error data from ten aphasic patients. The model was reasonable in simulating word production errors in this heterogeneous group of aphasic patients.

In this paper, we propose a genetic algorithm based approach to determine the pose of an object in Automated Visual Inspection having three degrees of freedom. We have investigated the effect of noise at 20 dB SNR and also mismatch resulting from incorrect correspondences between the object space points and the image space points, on the estimation of pose parameters. The maximum error in translation parameters is less than 0.45 cm and rotational error is less than 0.2 degree at 20 dB SNR. The error in parameter estimation is insignificant upto 7 pairs of mismatched points out of 24 points in object space and the results skyrockets when 8 or more pairs of points are mismatched. We have compared our result with that obtained by least square technique and it shows that GA based method outperform the gradient based technique when the number of vertices of the object to be inspected is small. These results have clearly established the robustness of GA in estimating the pose of an object with small number of vertices in automated visual inspection.

The dynamic decay adjustment (DDA) algorithm is a fast constructive algorithm for training RBF neural networks (RBFNs) and probabilistic neural networks (PNNs). The algorithm has two parameters, namely, θ⁺ and θ^-. The papers which introduced DDA argued that those parameters would not heavily influence classification performance and therefore they recommended using always the default values of these parameters. In contrast, this paper shows that smaller values of parameter θ^- can, for a considerable number of datasets, result in strong improvement in generalization performance. The experiments described here were carried out using twenty benchmark classification datasets from both Proben1 and the UCI repositories. The results show that for eleven of the datasets, the parameter θ^- strongly influenced classification performance. The influence of θ^- was also noticeable, although much less, on six of the datasets considered. This paper also compares the performance of RBF-DDA with θ^- selection with both AdaBoost and Support Vector Machines (SVMs).

This paper presents the pruning and model-selecting algorithms to the support vector learning for sample classification and function regression. When constructing RBF network by support vector learning we occasionally obtain redundant support vectors which do not significantly affect the final classification and function approximation results. The pruning algorithms primarily based on the sensitivity measure and the penalty term. The kernel function parameters and the position of each support vector are updated in order to have minimal increase in error, and this makes the structure of SVM network more flexible. We illustrate this approach with synthetic data simulation and face detection problem in order to demonstrate the pruning effectiveness.

In this paper, the delayed projection neural network for a class of solving convex programming problem is proposed. The existence of solution and global exponential stability of the proposed network are proved, which can guarantee to converge at an exact optimal solution of the convex programming problems. Several examples are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed network.

A neural-model-based control design for some nonlinear systems is addressed. The design approach is to approximate the nonlinear systems with neural networks of which the activation functions satisfy the sector conditions. A novel neural network model termed standard neural network model (SNNM) is advanced for describing this class of approximating neural networks. Full-order dynamic output feedback control laws are then designed for the SNNMs with inputs and outputs to stabilize the closed-loop systems. The control design equations are shown to be a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which can be easily solved by various convex optimization algorithms to determine the control signals. It is shown that most neural-network-based nonlinear systems can be transformed into input-output SNNMs to be stabilization synthesized in a unified way. Finally, some application examples are presented to illustrate the control design procedures.