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- From: "Neuron-Digest Moderator" <neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
- To: Neuron-Distribution: ;
- Subject: Neuron Digest V10 #3
- Reply-To: "Neuron-Request" <neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
- X-Errors-To: "Neuron-Request" <neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
- Organization: University of Pennsylvania
- Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 00:31:04 -0400
- Message-ID: <20778.716704264@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
- Sender: marvit@cattell.psych.upenn.edu
-
- Neuron Digest Wednesday, 16 Sep 1992
- Volume 10 : Issue 3
-
- Today's Topics:
- Limitations of Neural Nets with Quadrature data
- Re: Limitations of Neural Nets with Quadrature data
- Post-doctoral Fellowship
- "Expert Systems" on Macintosh
- 2nd Request for (p)Reprints on Simulated Annealing
- Petition: Computer Scientists object to gov't report
- Senior Academic Post Available
- studentships available almost immediately
-
-
- Send submissions, questions, address maintenance, and requests for old
- issues to "neuron-request@cattell.psych.upenn.edu". The ftp archives are
- available from cattell.psych.upenn.edu (128.91.2.173). Back issues
- requested by mail will eventually be sent, but may take a while.
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Subject: Limitations of Neural Nets with Quadrature data
- From: samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena)
- Organization: Crop Science Dept., NCSU, Raleigh, NC 27695-7620
- Date: 26 Aug 92 03:22:03 +0000
-
- [[ Editor's Note: This message and the next were taken from a BIONET
- mailing list, but seemed to be of potential interest to Digest readers.
- Any protein synthesizers wish to comment? -PM ]]
-
- "Feedforward Networks for Supervised Training:
-
- "We simulate supervised training of neural network connection weights and
- minimize specified measures of pattern-association error. .....we
- consider only feedforward connections. We start with the LMS algorithm
- for simple perceptrons....
-
- .....
-
- "The simple two-layer pattern associator (perceptrons) ...relates input-
- and output-layer activations by
-
- 8
- [1] layer2[i] = SUM-OVER W[i,k]*layer1[k] (i=1,2,...8)
- k=1
-
- "Our objective is to train the connection weights W[i,k] so that the
- perceptron associates eight given binary (0,1) output patterns (target
- patterns) with eight corresponding given binary input patterns, say the
- output (0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1) with the input (1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0), etc. This
- will not always work; a perceptron based on equation [1] can distinguish
- input patterns only if they are "linearly separable" by a hyperplane in
- pattern space. We can still obtain useful results.
-
- ......skip a lot....
-
- "As we already noted, the input-pattern classes corresponding to
- different output patterns must be linearly separable. This means that
- their pattern points must be separated by a hyperplane
-
- W*layer1 = CONST
-
- in n-dimensional space. This is, for instance, not true for the simple
- two-dimensional binary input patterns (0,0), (0,1), (1,0), (1,1) needed
- for the XOR (exclusive-OR) operation. As we add extra layers, we shall
- obtain more general separation hypersurfaces made up of multiple
- hyperplane segments.
-
- "Hidden Layers and Non-Linear Operations
-
- "Augmenting the basic pattern associator... with intermediate "hidden"
- layers will not help if the relations between different layer activations
- are *linear* like equation [1], for such a network acts exactly like the
- equivalent linear two-layer network. Nonlinear operations are
- *absolutely* necessary.
-
- QUOTED from: Neural Network Experiments on Personal Computers
- and Workstations
- Granino A. Korn
- "A Bradford Book"
- The MIT Press 1991 Cambridge
- QA76.87.K67
- ISBN 0-262-61073-6 (with computer diskette)
-
- This reading brought to minde two things:
-
- 1:
- Jack Cramer argued that not all information is in the primary DNA
- sequence in the case of histone-core placement...or at least, it
- is better to have supplimentary information available to "simply"
- the problem of site detection.
-
- Some argued that a neural net ought "to work" by analogy with the
- perceptron "success" for promoter recognition (...feel free to
- correct me).
-
- I interprete the above to mean that perhaps a NN can do it all with
- just DNA sequence, but that NONLINEAR part is the zinger. Then, what
- nonlinear partial derivitive does one use to estimate the error
- terms? That seems to be the critical point: the difference between
- a theoretically possible solution and an actual solution. Actually,
- this is similar to Shannon's proofs: proving the existance that a
- code exists with certain properties is not equivalent to describing the
- implementation parameters of the code.
-
- 2:
- The problem involved with information that is succinctly expressed
- in two bit wide alphabets....the difficulty experienced by perceptrons
- appears to do with the conciseness of expressing four alternative
- states with a two-bit representation. Here I feel there is a hint
- (or reinforcement) of why channel codes often are implemented by
- widening the number of bits for representing letters of the alphabet.
- There is a need for hyperplane separability, and that is easily
- achieved by increasing the character width. (as I described in
- the CD ROM encoding scheme somewhat earlier).
-
- These thoughts lead me to wonder whether proteins designed to interact
- in specific ways with DNA must have a "contact layer" not unlike
- Layer1 of a neural net. And then subsequent "hidden layers" (other
- parts of the folded protein structure) to perform nonlinear activation
- functions in order to achieve hypersurface separability. The LayerN
- neurons can be represented in a protein by the "decision action"
- which in the case of Eco RI is "0" or "1": cleave or not-cleave.
- Actually in the case of Eco RI, it is 00, 01, 10, 11: no cleavage;
- cleave left only; cleave right only; cleave both......four states
- of decision result needed to describe wildtype Eco RI and the studied
- variants.
-
- Back to NNs:
-
- "As we add extra layers, we shall obtain more general separation
- hypersurfaces made up of multiple hyperplane segments."
-
- That statement intrigues me. It's a way to think about protein design
- also.
-
- Steve
-
- +------------------------------------------------------------------+
- | In person: Steve Modena AB4EL |
- | On phone: (919) 515-5328 |
- | At e-mail: nmodena@unity.ncsu.edu |
- | samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu |
- | [ either email address is read each day ] |
- | By snail: Crop Sci Dept, Box 7620, NCSU, Raleigh, NC 27695 |
- +------------------------------------------------------------------+
- Lighten UP! It's just a computer doing that to you.
- OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Re: Limitations of Neural Nets with Quadrature data
- From: toms@fcs260c2.ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider)
- Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center
- Date: 26 Aug 92 18:09:38 +0000
-
- In article <1992Aug26.032203.20189@ncsu.edu> samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu
- (S. A. Modena) writes:
-
- >Some argued that a neural net ought "to work" by analogy with the
- >perceptron "success" for promoter recognition (...feel free to
- >correct me).
-
- Before that, ribosome binding sites; after: splice junctions.
-
- >The problem involved with information that is succinctly expressed
- >in two bit wide alphabets....the difficulty experienced by perceptrons
- >appears to do with the conciseness of expressing four alternative
- >states with a two-bit representation.
-
- Actually, the original use of the perceptron did NOT have this problem
- because yours truely suggested the alphabetic widening! The first use of
- a neural net to distinguish binding sites from other sequences was Gary
- Stormo's thesis:
-
- @article{StormoPerceptron1982,
- author = "G. D. Stormo
- and T. D. Schneider
- and L. Gold
- and A. Ehrenfeucht",
- title = "Use of the {`Perceptron'} algorithm to distinguish translational
- initiation sites in {{\em E. coli}}",
- year = "1982",
- journal = "Nucl. Acids Res.",
- volume = "10",
- pages = "2997-3011"}
-
- Nobody has gotten around to trying it directly with 4 symbols, as far as
- I know. It just seemed to be not a good idea because it forces a bias
- into the results.
-
- Tom Schneider
- National Cancer Institute
- Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
- Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201
- toms@ncifcrf.gov
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Post-doctoral Fellowship
- From: RREILLY@ccvax.ucd.ie
- Date: 09 Sep 92 10:33:00 -0100
-
- Human Capital and Mobility Programme of the Commission of the European
- Communities
-
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
- ==============================================================
-
- Applications are invited for an EC funded post-doctoral fellowship with
- the connectionist research group in the Dept. of Computer Science,
- University College Dublin, Ireland. The duration of the fellowship may
- be between 6-12 months. Remuneration will be at a rate of 3,255
- ECU/month (this covers subsistence, tax, social insurance, etc.). The
- fellowship is open to EC citizens other than citizens of Ireland.
-
- The research topics are:
-
- (1) The connectionist modelling of eye-movement control
- in reading, and
-
- (2) The connectionist modelling of natural language
- processing.
-
- Interested candidates should send me a letter of application, a CV, and a
- list of their publications. They should also indicate which research
- topic, and what particular aspects of it, they are interested in working
- on.
-
- Since the closing date for receipt of applications is September 25,
- candidates are encouraged to send their applications either by e-mail or
- FAX.
-
- Ronan Reilly
- Dept. of Computer Science
- University College Dublin
- Belfield
- Dublin 4
- IRELAND
-
- Tel.: +353.1.7062475
- Fax : +353.1.2697262
- e-mail: rreilly@ccvax.ucd.ie
- =====================================================================
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: "Expert Systems" on Macintosh
- From: VEMURI@icdc.llnl.gov
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 13:37:00 -0800
-
- Dear friends:
-
- I am being asked to guest edit a special issue of a technical periodical.
- The proposed topic of this special issue is "Expert Systems on Macintosh
- Platforms". The scope of the topic is broad in the sense we would be
- interested in all issues dealing with expert systems, shells,
- applications, hybrid systems containing expert systems and neural nets,
- expert systems and fuzzy systems, etc. The only constraint is to confine
- ourselves to those systems and case studies done on Apple Macintosh
- personal computers.
-
- Our intention is to include both invited and submitted articles of high
- quality. They will all be thoroughly reviewed by a panel of experts.
-
- At this time my questions are the following:
- Is the Apple platform an unreasonable restriction?
- Is there enough material out there working on Apple PC's
- Who are some of the important players?
-
- Before I launch on a call for papers, I am testing the waters to see who
- is doing what.
-
- Can you help?
-
- V. Vemuri
- Professor
- Dept. of Applied Science
- University of California, Davis
- (510) 294-4051
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: 2nd Request for (p)Reprints on Simulated Annealing
- From: Lester Ingber <ingber@alumni.cco.caltech.edu>
- Date: Sat, 12 Sep 92 11:47:12 -0800
-
- 2nd Request for (p)Reprints on Simulated Annealing
-
- I posted the text below in July, and have received many interesting
- papers which I will at least mention in my review. It is clear that many
- researchers use something "like" simulated annealing (SA) in their work
- to approach quite difficult computational problems. They take advantage
- of the ease of including complex constraints and nonlinearities into an
- SA approach that requires a quite simple and small code, especially
- relative to many other search algorithms.
-
- However, the bulk of the papers I have seen use the standard Boltzmann
- annealing, for which it has been proven sufficient to only use a log
- annealing schedule for the temperature parameter in order to
- statistically achieve a global optimal solution. This can require a
- great deal of CPU time to implement, and so these papers actually
- "quench" their searches by using much faster temperature schedules, too
- fast to theoretically claim they are achieving the global optimum.
- Instead they have defined their own method of simulated quenching (SQ).
-
- In many of their problems this really is not much of an issue, as there
- is enough additional information about their system to be able to claim
- that their SQ is good enough, and the ease of implementation certainly
- warrants its use. I.e., anyone familiar with trying to use other
- "standard" methods of nonlinear optimization on difficult problems will
- appreciate this. I also appreciate that faster SA methods, such as I
- have published myself, are not as easily implemented.
-
- I would like to have more examples of:
- (1) papers that have really used SA instead of SQ in difficult problems.
- (2) proposed/tested improvements to SA which still have the important
- feature of establishing at least a heuristic argument that a global
- optimum can indeed be reached, e.g., some kind of ergodic argument.
-
- The review is on SA, and I do not have the allotted space or intention to
- compare SA to other important and interesting algorithms.
-
- Thanks.
-
- Lester
-
- }I have accepted an invitation to prepare a review article on simulated
- }annealing for Statistics and Computing. The first draft is due 15
- }Jan 93.
- }
- }If you or your colleagues have performed some unique work using
- }this methodology that you think could be included in this review,
- }please send me (p)reprints via regular mail. As I will be
- }making an effort to prepare a coherent article, not necessarily an
- }all inclusive one, please do not be too annoyed if I must choose not
- }to include/reference work you suggest. Of course, I will formally
- }reference or acknowledge any inclusion of your suggestions/material
- }in this paper. While there has been work done, and much more remains
- }to be done, on rigorous proofs and pedagogical examples/comparisons,
- }I plan on stressing the use of this approach on complex, nonlinear
- }and even stochastic systems.
- }
- }I am a "proponent" of a statistical mechanical approach to selected
- }problems in several fields; some recent reprints are available via
- }anonymous ftp from ftp.umiacs.umd.edu [128.8.120.23] in the pub/ingber
- }directory. I am not a hardened "proponent" of simulated annealing;
- }I welcome papers criticizing or comparing simulated annealing to
- }other approaches. I already plan on including some references that
- }are openly quite hostile to this approach.
-
- # Prof. Lester Ingber #
- # ingber@alumni.caltech.edu #
- # P.O. Box 857 #
- # McLean, VA 22101 [10ATT]0-700-L-INGBER #
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Petition: Computer Scientists object to gov't report
- From: niv@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Michael Niv)
- Organization: University of Pennsylvania
- Date: 13 Sep 92 01:10:18 +0000
-
- [[ Editor's Note: While this message is not directly concerned with
- Neural Networks, I feel it *is* applicable to many of the Digest
- readership. If you are involved with, or have an interest in, computer
- science research in the United States, please consider the issues this
- petition seeks to address and decide whether you feel the following
- effort is justified and/or supportable. -PM ]]
-
- Petition: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering
-
- A petition sponsored by John McCarthy, Bob Boyer, Jack Minker,
- John Mitchell, and Nils Nilsson.
-
- Dear Colleagues in Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Engineering:
-
- We are asking you to join us in asking the Computer Science and
- Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council to withdraw for
- revision its report entitled ``Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for
- Computer Science and Engineering'', because we consider it misleading and
- even harmful as an agenda for future research. Our objections include
- its defining computer science in terms of a narrow set of applied
- objectives, and its implication that the tone of computer science is to
- be set by government agencies, university administrators and
- industrialists and that computer scientists are just the ``soldiers on
- the ground''.
-
- There is much useful information in the report, but the Preface and the
- Executive Summary characterize computer science in a way that no other
- science would accept. Chapter 2, ``Looking to the Future of CS&E'', and
- Chapter 3, ``A Core CS&E Research Agenda for the Future'' should also not
- be accepted by computer scientists. The Report merges computer science
- and computer engineering at the cost of abolishing computer science and
- seriously narrowing computer engineering.
-
- Besides individual scientists, we hope that some computer science
- departments will collectively join in requesting the report's withdrawal.
-
- Our campaign for the report's withdrawal is being conducted entirely by
- electronic mail, and we will be grateful to anyone who forwards this
- message to others who might be concerned. Email to
- signatures@cs.stanford.edu will be counted as signing the petition, not
- as necessarily agreeing to everything in this message. In fact, the
- sponsors of this message are committed to the petition and not
- necessarily to every detail of the message. We haven't taken the time to
- hash out every detail. So ``sign'' if you endorse the petition.
-
- [The Latex source of the arguments against the report document is
- available by anonymous ftp from sail.stanford.edu under the name
- /pub/jmc/whysign.tex. The other two documents are /pub/jmc/petition.tex
- for the petition itself and /pub/jmc/preface.tex for the preface and
- executive summary of the NRC report. A non-Latex email message
- containing both the petition and arguments for it may be found under the
- name /pub/jmc/petition-why.]
-
- As of 1992 September 4, the sponsors of this request are
- Bob Boyer, boyer@cs.utexas.edu,
- John McCarthy, jmc@cs.stanford.edu,
- Jack Minker, minker@cs.umd.edu,
- John Mitchell, jcm@cs.stanford.edu
- and
- Nils Nilsson, nilsson@cs.stanford.edu. John McCarthy may be telephoned
- at 415 723-4430.
-
- (from Stevan Harnad's PSYCOLOQUY list)
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Senior Academic Post Available
- From: rohwerrj <rohwerrj@cs.aston.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 18:03:13 +0000
-
- **************************************************************************
- Senior Acedemic Post Available
- Dept. of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
- Aston University
- **************************************************************************
-
- The Aston University Department of Computer Science and Applied
- Mathematics is building a research group in neural networks, genetic
- algorithms and related subjects. The group, led by the department
- chairman Professor David Bounds, and lecturers Richard Rohwer and Alan
- Harget currently has 7 PhD students. The department is seeking a
- new senior faculty member, preferably at Reader or Professorial level,
- to augment this group. The candidate must have proven skills as a
- research leader. The appointee will also be involved in some teaching
- and fundraising and will be expected to actively build upon Aston's
- close relationship with industry. There is no prescribed time
- table for filling this post.
-
- The Department has substantial computing resources, including a sequent
- symmetry and 2 large Sun networks. Space has been set aside for
- expansion. Aston University is in Birmingham, a convenient central
- England location with easy access to the rest of England and Wales.
-
- Inquiries should be directed to:
-
- Professor David Bounds
- CSAM
- Aston University
- Aston Triangle
- Birmingham B4 7ET
- ENGLAND
-
- (44 or 0) (21) 359-3611 x4243
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: studentships available almost immediately
- From: rohwerrj <rohwerrj@cs.aston.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 18:05:18 +0000
-
- *****************************************************************************
- PhD STUDENTSHIPS AVAILABLE in NEURAL NETWORKS
- Dept. of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
- Aston University
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Funding has unexpectedly become available at the last minute for 1 or
- possibly 2 PhD studentships in the Neural Networks group at Aston
- University. Ideally the students would enroll in October 1992. The
- group currently consists of Professor David Bounds, lecturers Richard
- Rohwer and Alan Harget, and 7 PhD students. Current research projects
- are drawn from Genetic Algorithms and Artificial Life, as well as
- main-line neural network subjects such as local basis function
- techniques and training algorithm research, with an emphasis on
- recurrent networks. For further information please contact me at the
- address below.
-
- Richard Rohwer
- Dept. of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
- Aston University
- Aston Triangle
- Birmingham B4 7ET
- ENGLAND
-
- Tel: (44 or 0) (21) 359-3611 x4688 (failing that, leave message at x4243)
- FAX: (44 or 0) (21) 333-6215
- rohwerrj@uk.ac.aston.cs <-- email communication preferred.
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- End of Neuron Digest [Volume 10 Issue 3]
- ****************************************
-