Homework 1 - ANN Fundamentals

Due Friday, September 2, 2015

NOTE: This assignment, like others in this class, is due at the beginning of the class period. This means that if you are even a minute late, you lose 20%. If you are worried about potentially being late, turn in your homework ahead of time. Do this by submitting them to me during office hours or by sliding it under my office door. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

As discussed in class, the foundational computing element for an artificial neural network (ANN) is the artificial neuron (AN). ANs can learn in many ways but the most fundamental way is supervised learning. Moreover, ANs may be used for many tasks but the most basic is classification. These ANN basics — ANs, supervised learning, and classification — are the topics of this homework.

The assignment.

Complete the following exercises:

Part 1 — AN Representation

  1. Consider a single AN used for classification in a 2D space with an augmented vector as discussed in the Engelbrecht text. This AN is a summation unit (SU) and its activation function fAN is a step function with outputs γ1=1 for fAN(net) ≥ 0 and γ2=0 for fAN(net) < 0. Given the weights v1=1.0, v2=−0.3, and v3=0.5, draw this AN.
  2. Draw (on graph or engineering paper or by using software) the decision boundary encoded by this AN. Be sure to indicate the γ1 side of the boundary.
  3. Add the following points on the graph you just drew and label the class of each according to the AN.
  4. Assume that the AN’s classification of each of the points above is correct. List a new labeled data item which, if added to the data set above, would necessarily cause the AN to misclassify at least one data item. Explain why the AN would necessarily misclassify at least one data item.
  5. Explain how the decision boundary for this AN would change if γ2 were changed to −1, rather than 0.
    [Note for explanatory questions, like this one: To explain the answer, describe what the answer is — in this case, what changes (if any) there are to the decision boundary — and also why that is the correct answer — in this case that answer would be based on how the value of γ affects the decision boundary.]
  6. Explain how the decision boundary for this AN would change if fAN were changed to be a sigmoidal function.
  7. Explain how the classification of each of the points listed above would change if fAN were a sigmoidal function.

Part 2 — AN Learning

  1. Consider the same AN given above in 1.1 together with the following learning rule (and ignore the points in 1.3 and 1.4 and possible modifications to the AN listed in 1.5 – 1.7):
    vi(t) = vi(t−1) + (tpop) zi,p
    Explain how the AN weights would be updated given each of the following labeled data points, presented in the following order:
  2. Draw the graph of the data and the decision boundary after each weight update for the data given in 2.1.
  3. Explain which of the points in 2.1 are correctly classified by this AN after all of the weight updates from one learning pass through this data and explain what this tells us about the use of this learning rule.
  4. Explain how many more passes through the data are needed before all of the points from 2.1 are correctly classified by this AN. Show your work.
  5. Explain the likely effect of introducing a learning rate parameter (η) into the equation given.

What to turn in.

Turn in a neatly handwritten or typed copy of your answers to the exercises for this assignment. The diagrams should be neatly drawn on engineering or graph paper or by using software. You should turn in both a paper and electronic (perhaps scanned) copy of this assignment..