With the growing interest in the practical use of neural networks, addressing the problem of customiling networks for specific applications is becoming increasingly critical. It has repeatedly been observed that different network structures and learning parameters can substantially affect performance.

With the growing interest in the practical use of neural networks, addressing the problem of customiling networks for specific applications is becoming increasingly critical.It has repeatedly been observed that different network structures and learning parameters can substantially affect performance. Such important aspects of neural network applications as generalilation, learning speed, connectivity andtolerance to network damage are strongly related to the choice of 448 Harp, Samad and Guha network architecture. Yet there are few analytic results, and few heuristics, that can help the application developer design an appropriate network. We have been investigating the use of the genetic algorithm (Goldberg, 1989; Holland, 1975) for designing application-specific neural networks (Harp, Samad and Guha, 1989ab). In our approach, the genetic algorithm is used to evolve appropriate network structures and values of learning parameters.

With the growing interest in the practical use of neural networks, addressing the problem of customiling networks for specific applications is becoming increasingly critical. It has repeatedly been observed that different network structures and learning parameters can substantially affect performance.