This paper introduces a new recognition-based segmentation approach to recognizing online cursive handwriting from a database of 10,000 English words. The original input stream of z, y pen coordinates is encoded as a sequence of uniform stroke descriptions that are processed by six feed-forward neural-networks, each designed to recognize letters of different sizes. Words are then recognized by performing best-first search over the space of all possible segmentations. Results demonstrate that the method is effective at both writer dependent recognition (1.7% to 15.5% error rate) and writer independent recognition (5.2% to 31.1% error rate). 1 Introduction With the advent of pen-based computers, the problem of automatically recognizing handwriting from the motions of a pen has gained much significance. Progress has been made in reading disjoint block letters [Weissman et.

Spotting tasks require detection of target patterns from a background of richly varied non-target inputs. The performance measure of interest for these tasks, called the figure of merit (FOM), is the detection rate for target patterns when the false alarm rate is in an acceptable range. A new approach to training spotters is presented which computes the FOM gradient for each input pattern and then directly maximizes the FOM using backpropagation. This eliminates the need for thresholds during training. It also uses network resources to model Bayesian a posteriori probability functions accurately only for patterns which have a significant effect on the detection accuracy over the false alarm rate of interest.

Terence D. Sanger Jet Propulsion Laboratory MS 303-310 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 Abstract The Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is an important tool for linear algebra and can be used to invert or approximate matrices. Although many authors use "SVD" synonymously with "Eigenvector Decomposition"or "Principal Components Transform", it is important to realize that these other methods apply only to symmetric matrices, while the SVD can be applied to arbitrary nonsquare matrices. This property is important for applications to signal transmission and control. I propose two new algorithms for iterative computation of the SVD given only sample inputs and outputs from a matrix. Although there currently exist many algorithms for Eigenvector Decomposition (Sanger1989, for example), these are the first true samplebased SVDalgorithms. 1 INTRODUCTION The Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is a method for writing an arbitrary nons quare matrix as the product of two orthogonal matrices and a diagonal matrix.

The recurrent network,containing six continuous-time analog neurons and 42 free parameters (connection strengths and thresholds), is trained to generate time-varying outputs approximating given periodic signals presented to the network. The chip implements a stochastic perturbative algorithm,which observes the error gradient along random directions in the parameter space for error-descent learning. In addition tothe integrated learning functions and the generation of pseudo-random perturbations, the chip provides for teacher forcing andlong-term storage of the volatile parameters. The network learns a 1 kHz circular trajectory in 100 sec. The chip occupies 2mm x 2mm in a 2JLm CMOS process, and dissipates 1.2 mW. 1 Introduction Exact gradient-descent algorithms for supervised learning in dynamic recurrent networks [1-3]are fairly complex and do not provide for a scalable implementation in a standard 2-D VLSI process. We have implemented a fairly simple and scalable ·Present address: Johns Hopkins University, ECE Dept., Baltimore MD 21218-2686.

Alessandro Sperduti* Department of Computer Science Pisa University Corso Italia 40, 56125 Pisa, Italy Abstract In this paper we propose an extension to the RAAM by Pollack. This extension, the Labeling RAAM (LRAAM), can encode labeled graphswith cycles by representing pointers explicitly. Data encoded in an LRAAM can be accessed by pointer as well as by content. Direct access by content can be achieved by transforming theencoder network of the LRAAM into an analog Hopfield network with hidden units. Different access procedures can be defined depending on the access key.

Motivated by mathematical modeling, analog implementation and distributed simulation of neural networks, we present a definition of asynchronous dynamics of general CT dynamical systems defined by ordinary differential equations, based on notions of local times and communication times. We provide some preliminary results on globally asymptotical convergence of asynchronous dynamics for contractive and monotone CT dynamical systems. When applying theresults to neural networks, we obtain some conditions that ensure additive-type neural networks to be asynchronizable.

Many well known neural network techniques for adaptive pattern classification and function approximation are inherently highly parallel, and thus have proven difficult toimplement for real-time applications at a reasonable cost.

Four versions of a k-nearest neighbor algorithm with locally adaptive kare introduced and compared to the basic k-nearest neighbor algorithm (kNN). Locally adaptive kNN algorithms choose the value of k that should be used to classify a query by consulting the results of cross-validation computations in the local neighborhood of the query. Local kNN methods are shown to perform similar to kNN in experiments with twelve commonly used data sets. Encouraging resultsin three constructed tasks show that local methods can significantly outperform kNN in specific applications. Local methods can be recommended for online learning and for applications wheredifferent regions of the input space are covered by patterns solving different sub-tasks.

Department of Computer Science University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 Abstract One of the advantages of supervised learning is that the final error metric isavailable during training. For classifiers, the algorithm can directly reduce the number of misclassifications on the training set. Unfortunately, whenmodeling human learning or constructing classifiers for autonomous robots,supervisory labels are often not available or too expensive. In this paper we show that we can substitute for the labels by making use of structure between the pattern distributions to different sensory modalities.We show that minimizing the disagreement between the outputs of networks processing patterns from these different modalities is a sensible approximation to minimizing the number of misclassifications in each modality, and leads to similar results. Using the Peterson-Barney vowel dataset we show that the algorithm performs well in finding appropriate placementfor the codebook vectors particularly when the confuseable classes are different for the two modalities. 1 INTRODUCTION This paper addresses the question of how a human or autonomous robot can learn to classify new objects without experience with previous labeled examples.

The acquisition of spatial knowledge by exploration of an environment has been the subject ofseveral recent experimental studies.