A Markovian event-based framework for stochastic spiking neural networks

In spiking neural networks, the information is conveyed by the spike times, that depend on the intrinsic dynamics of each neuron, the input they receive and on the connections between neurons. In this article we study the Markovian nature of the sequence of spike times in stochastic neural networks, and in particular the ability to deduce from a spike train the next spike time, and therefore produce a description of the network activity only based on the spike times regardless of the membrane potential process. To study this question in a rigorous manner, we introduce and study an event-based description of networks of noisy integrate-and-fire neurons, i.e. that is based on the computation of the spike times. We show that the firing times of the neurons in the networks constitute a Markov chain, whose transition probability is related to the probability distribution of the interspike interval of the neurons in the network. In the cases where the Markovian model can be developed, the transition probability is explicitly derived in such classical cases of neural networks as the linear integrate-and-fire neuron models with excitatory and inhibitory interactions, for different types of synapses, possibly featuring noisy synaptic integration, transmission delays and absolute and relative refractory period. This covers most of the cases that have been investigated in the event-based description of spiking deterministic neural networks

A Comparative Study on Regularization Strategies for Embedding-based Neural Networks

This paper aims to compare different regularization strategies to address a common phenomenon, severe overfitting, in embedding-based neural networks for NLP. We chose two widely studied neural models and tasks as our testbed. We tried several frequently applied or newly proposed regularization strategies, including penalizing weights (embeddings excluded), penalizing embeddings, re-embedding words, and dropout. We also emphasized on incremental hyperparameter tuning, and combining different regularizations. The results provide a picture on tuning hyperparameters for neural NLP models.Comment: EMNLP '1

A CASE STUDY ON SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES VERSUS ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

The capability of artificial neural networks for pattern recognition of real world problems is well known. In recent years, the support vector machine has been advocated for its structure risk minimization leading to tolerance margins of decision boundaries. Structures and performances of these pattern classifiers depend on the feature dimension and training data size. The objective of this research is to compare these pattern recognition systems based on a case study. The particular case considered is on classification of hypertensive and normotensive right ventricle (RV) shapes obtained from Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) sequences. In this case, the feature dimension is reasonable, but the available training data set is small, however, the decision surface is highly nonlinear.For diagnosis of congenital heart defects, especially those associated with pressure and volume overload problems, a reliable pattern classifier for determining right ventricle function is needed. RV¡¦s global and regional surface to volume ratios are assessed from an individual¡¦s MRI heart images. These are used as features for pattern classifiers. We considered first two linear classification methods: the Fisher linear discriminant and the linear classifier trained by the Ho-Kayshap algorithm. When the data are not linearly separable, artificial neural networks with back-propagation training and radial basis function networks were then considered, providing nonlinear decision surfaces. Thirdly, a support vector machine was trained which gives tolerance margins on both sides of the decision surface. We have found in this case study that the back-propagation training of an artificial neural network depends heavily on the selection of initial weights, even though randomized. The support vector machine where radial basis function kernels are used is easily trained and provides decision tolerance margins, in spite of only small margins