Neural Networks (123131)

This page contains information about the elective course Neural Networks as was once taught at the University of Twente.

All information below refers to the academic year 1999-2000.

The following book was used as compulsory text:

Ballard, D.H., "An Introduction to Natural Computation", MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, (1997) (there exists a paperback edition published in 1999).
More on the book can be found at the site of the publisher and the author. The author's site contains e.g. the transparencies developed by him.

A list of errata for the book composed by myself is now available.

Slides

As a service to the students, the slides used in the lectures are available here (in pdf format). Hardcopies are distributed before the corresponding lectures and can be obtained as well at Sabih's office.

Warning: The material used is protected by copyright which means that the slides can only be used for personal use and should in no way be used for commercial purposes.

Topic Corresponding book chapter Release date
Organization None December 1, 1999
Introduction 1 and some extra material December 9, 1999
Fitness 2 December 16, 1999
Programs part of 3, part of 6 and some extra material December 16, 1999
Data 4 and some alternative material January 11, 2000
Dynamics Parts of 5 January 12, 2000
Optimization Parts of 6 January 13, 2000
Content-Addressable Memories Large parts of 7 + extra material (i) January 21, 2000
Supervised Learning Large parts of 8 + extra material (i) February 3, 2000
Unsupervised Learning Large parts of 9 + extra material (i) February 11, 2000
Genetic Algorithms Parts of 12 + extra material February 17, 2000
Genetic Programming Parts of 13 + some extra material February 24, 2000

(i) Slightly corrected with respect to hardcopies distributed in class.

Examination and Projects

The course has a study load of 100 hours. 40 of these are reserved for attending the lectures and studying the book. 60 are spent on a project. A project can consist of making an implementation, a literature review or a combination of both. The project can be performed by an individual student or a small group of students. The results of this project combined with a short oral examination on the project and theory determine the mark for the course.

Oral Examination

The theory part of the oral examination will cover all material presented in the slides and the following parts of the book: 
Chapter 1, entirely
Chapter 2, entirely
Chapter 3, entirely
Chapter 4, except for Section 4.6
Chapter 5, entirely
Chapter 6, except for Section 6.4.2
Chapter 7, up to (and including) Section 7.3
Chapter 8, up to (and including) Section 8.3
Chapter 9, up to (and including) Section 9.4.1
Chapter 12, up to (and including) Section 12.2.1
Chapter 13, entirely

The emphasis in the examination is on general lines, relations between different approaches, etc. rather than on e.g. mathematical derivations.

Project

A student should hand over the following items after termination of an implementation project:

A literature review results in only a report. This report should not merely summarize the separate sources of information studied, but try to show their interrelations as well.

Students are encouraged to propose projects based on their own interests. However, they can also choose any of the following projects:

In any case, students should always contact me (Sabih Gerez) before starting to work on a project. If necessary, computer facilities can be made available in our lab.

Go (back) to Sabih's Home Page.
Last update on: Sat Jan 29 00:24:15 CET 2022 by Sabih Gerez.