A number of hybrid multilayer perceptron (MLP)/hidden Markov model (HMM:) speech recognition systems have been developed in recent years (Morgan and Bourlard.

The bootstrap method offers an computation intensive alternative to estimate the predictive distribution for a neural network even if the analytic derivation is intractable. Theavailable asymptotic results show that it is valid for a large number of linear, nonlinear and even nonparametric regression problems. It has the potential tomodel the distribution of estimators to a higher precision than the usual normal asymptotics. It even may be valid if the normal asymptotics fail. However, the theoretical properties of bootstrap procedures for neural networks - especially nonlinear models - have to be investigated more comprehensively.

We are interested in the use of analog neural networks for recognizing visualobjects. Objects are described by the set of parts they are composed of and their structural relationship. Structural modelsare stored in a database and the recognition problem reduces to matching data to models in a structurally consistent way.The object recognition problem is in general very difficult in that it involves coupled problems of grouping, segmentation and matching. We limit the problem here to the simultaneous labelling ofthe parts of a single object and the determination of analog parameters. This coupled problem reduces to a weighted match problem in which an optimizing neural network must minimize E(M,p) LO'i MO'i WO'i(p), where the {MO'd are binary match variables for data parts i to model parts a and {Wai(P)} are weights dependent on parameters p .

How can artificial neural nets generalize better from fewer examples? In order to generalize successfully, neural network learning methods typically require large training data sets. We introduce a neural network learning method that generalizes rationally from many fewer data points, relying instead on prior knowledge encoded in previously learned neural networks. For example, in robot control learning tasks reported here, previously learned networks that model the effects of robot actions are used to guide subsequent learning of robot control functions. For each observed training example of the target function (e.g. the robot control policy), the learner explains the observed example in terms of its prior knowledge, then analyzes this explanation to infer additional information about the shape, or slope, of the target function. This shape knowledge is used to bias generalization when learning the target function. Results are presented applying this approach to a simulated robot task based on reinforcement learning.

In this work we apply a texture classification network to remote sensing image analysis.The goal is to extract the characteristics of the area depicted in the input image, thus achieving a segmented map of the region. We have recently proposed a combined neural network and rule-based framework for texture recognition. The framework uses unsupervised and supervised learning, and provides probability estimates for the output classes. We describe the texture classification network and extend it to demonstrate its application to the Landsat and Aerial image analysis domain. 1 INTRODUCTION In this work we apply a texture classification network to remote sensing image analysis. The goal is to segment the input image into homogeneous textured regions and identify each region as one of a prelearned library of textures, e.g.

IR is typically a sigmoidal function such as (1.2) but other choices than (1.2) are possible and of interest.

We describe a model of visual word recognition that accounts for several aspects of the temporal processing of sequences of briefly presented words. The model utilizes a new representation for written words,based on dynamic time warping and multidimensional scaling. The visual input passes through cascaded perceptual, comparison, anddetection stages. We describe how these dynamical processes can account for several aspects of word recognition, including repetitionpriming and repetition blindness.

We would like to incorporate speaker-dependent consistencies, such as gender, in an otherwise speaker-independent speech recognition system. In this paper we discuss a Gender Dependent Neural Network (GDNN) which can be tuned for each gender, while sharing most of the speaker independent parameters. We use a classification network to help generate gender-dependent phonetic probabilities for a statistical (HMM) recognition system.The gender classification net predicts the gender with high accuracy, 98.3% on a Resource Management test set. However, the integration ofthe GDNN into our hybrid HMM-neural network recognizer provided an improvement in the recognition score that is not statistically significant on a Resource Management test set.

The implementation uses noise injection and multiplicative correlation to estimate derivatives, as in [Anderson, Kerns 92]. One intended application of this technique is setting circuit parameters on-chip automatically, rather than manually [Kirk 91]. Gradient descent optimization may be used to adjust synapse weights for a backpropagation or other on-chip learning implementation. The approach combines the features of continuous multidimensional gradient descent and the potential for an annealing style of optimization. We present data measured from our analog VLSI implementation. 1 Introduction This work is similar to [Anderson, Kerns 92], but represents two advances. First, we describe the extension of the technique to multiple dimensions. Second, we demonstrate animplementation of the multidimensional technique in analog VLSI, and provide results measured from the chip. Unlike previous work using noise sources in adaptive systems, we use the noise as a means of estimating the gradient of a function f(y), rather than performing an annealing process [Alspector 88]. We also estimate gr-;:dients continuously in position and time, in contrast to [Umminger 89] and [J abri 91], which utilize discrete position gradient estimates.

Connectionist Rpeech recognition systems are often handicapped by an inconsistency between training and testing criteria. This problem isaddressed by the Multi-State Time Delay Neural Network (MS-TDNN), a hierarchical phonf'mp and word classifier which uses DTW to modulate its connectivit.y