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From: pako@lut.fi (Pasi Koikkalainen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Defining a Nerual Network
Message-ID: <1990Nov18.140416.10297@lut.fi>
Date: 18 Nov 90 14:04:16 GMT
References: <2491@bimacs.BITNET> <6904@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Organization: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 31

ins_atge@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Thomas G Edwards) writes:
>>  Has anyone seen or heard a definition for a Neural Network.

>Not really.  In the literature, and talking with researchers, you will

Well, I have been able to found a multitude of definitions for NN:s.
These definitions, however, do not really specify what Artificical
Neural Networks are (or are not). As a result almost anything can
be presented as a neural network (and also has been presented).
The most popular ANNs seemto have some common features:
- Massively parallel
- No external control mechanism (communication of PE:s only via message lines)
- adaptation, learning rules.
- paradigms are simle

>Kohonen maps can fall into the "connectionist" label fairly well.

One must remember that there are two definitions of what "connectionist"
networks are. The definition here was that they are ANNs. The other 
definition is that they are higher level decision making networks,
similar to semantic networks in AI, introduced by Feldman and in the
PDP book; a subset of ANNs. Kohonen maps are lower level ANNs in that
sense, but certainly this is a typical Artificial Neural Network too.

Just wait few more weeks and I will publish my lic.thesis on this
subject, you will be able to get your copy via postscript ftp file.
-- 
 * ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 *  Pasi Koikkalainen 
 *  Lappeenranta University of Technology
 *  P.O.Box 20, 53851 LPR, Finland