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From: wipke@secs.ucsc.edu (W. Todd Wipke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: A theoretical question: multiple patterns and synchrony
Message-ID: <00934F82.F60A9D60@secs.ucsc.edu>
Date: 10 Apr 90 07:35:46 GMT
References: <761@mirsa.inria.fr>
Sender: usenet@darkstar.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: wipke@secs.ucsc.edu (W. Todd Wipke)
Organization: UCSC Molecular Engineering Laboratory
Lines: 45

>Consider a neural network with several local minima of the energy function,
>each of which representing a different pattern, and having differents slopes 
>and depths.
>Consider now an image containing different patterns among those represented
>in that network. Each of these ones will be recognized but the different
>local minima will be reached at different times. This means that vision in a
>temporal process: object 1 is perceived, then object 2 ...
>So, how to create a representation of a composed object made of an assembly 
>of different patterns ?
>One can say that the temporal synchrony of the units is a representation of 
>the global identity, but how to obtain this synchrony between the different 
>parts of the image ?
 
Chemists routinely minimize energy of three-dimensional networks which can
have several local minima.  Each minimum represents a low energy state 
of the molecule, in effect, the "personality" of the molecule.  I wonder
if there are any interesting conclusions one can draw.
 
On another but related topic, chemists have successfully used learning
machines for chemical pattern recognition--the work was done in 1969-71.
Very systematic studies of learning rate versus feature scaling, 
number of parameters, type of feedback, size and diversity of training set
etc.  Peter Jurs, Penn State wrote a book on it and many papers showing
one can predict mass spec, determine molecular formula from mass spec,
classify drugs, etc.  From the literature I have seen, this work has
gone unnoticed by the computer science community.  Since the data sets
are well defined, it would provide a reproducible standard against which
you could all compare your methods or black boxes.  To my knowledge
there is no such standard in use today.  I would be very interested
to see if today's methods are better than earlier ones.  I have not seen
systematic studies like Jurs did, but would like to see some.
=======================================================================
W. Todd Wipke                           wipke@secs.ucsc.edu
Molecular Engineering Laboratory        wipke@ucscd.ucsc.edu
Thimann Laboratories                    wipke@ucscd.bitnet
University of California                BBS 408 429-8019
Santa Cruz, CA  95064                   FAX 408 459-4716
=======================================================================
=======================================================================
W. Todd Wipke                           wipke@secs.ucsc.edu
Molecular Engineering Laboratory        wipke@ucscd.ucsc.edu
Thimann Laboratories                    wipke@ucscd.bitnet
University of California                BBS 408 429-8019
Santa Cruz, CA  95064                   FAX 408 459-4716
=======================================================================