Book Image

Neural Networks with R

By : Balaji Venkateswaran, Giuseppe Ciaburro
Book Image

Neural Networks with R

By: Balaji Venkateswaran, Giuseppe Ciaburro

Overview of this book

Neural networks are one of the most fascinating machine learning models for solving complex computational problems efficiently. Neural networks are used to solve wide range of problems in different areas of AI and machine learning. This book explains the niche aspects of neural networking and provides you with foundation to get started with advanced topics. The book begins with neural network design using the neural net package, then you’ll build a solid foundation knowledge of how a neural network learns from data, and the principles behind it. This book covers various types of neural network including recurrent neural networks and convoluted neural networks. You will not only learn how to train neural networks, but will also explore generalization of these networks. Later we will delve into combining different neural network models and work with the real-world use cases. By the end of this book, you will learn to implement neural network models in your applications with the help of practical examples in the book.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Perceptrons and their applications


A perceptron can be understood as anything that takes multiple inputs and produces one output. It is the simplest form of a neural network. The perceptron was proposed by Frank Rosenblatt in 1958 as an entity with an input and output layer and a learning rule based on minimizing the error. This learning function called error backpropagation alters connective weights (synapses) based on the actual output of the network with respect to a given input, as the difference between the actual output and the desired output.

The enthusiasm was enormous and the cybernetics industry was born. But later, scientists Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert (1969) demonstrated the limits of the perceptron. Indeed, a perceptron is able to recognize, after a suitable training, only linearly separable functions. For example, the XOR logic function cannot be implemented by a perceptron.

The following image showns Frank Rosenblatt at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (1957-1959),...