ML implements feed-forward artificial neural networks, more particularly, multi-layer perceptrons (MLP), the most commonly used type of neural networks. MLP consists of the input layer, output layer, and one or more hidden layers. Each layer of MLP includes one or more neurons that are directionally linked with the neurons from the previous and the next layer. The example below represents a 3-layer perceptron with three inputs, two outputs, and the hidden layer including five neurons:
All the neurons in MLP are similar. Each of them has several input links (it takes the output values from several neurons in the previous layer as input) and several output links (it passes the response to several neurons in the next layer). The values retrieved from the previous layer are summed up with certain weights, individual for each neuron, plus the bias term. The sum is transformed using the activation function
:math:`f` that may be also different for different neurons.
Y. LeCun, L. Bottou, G.B. Orr and K.-R. Muller, *Efficient backprop*, in Neural Networks---Tricks of the Trade, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences 1524, pp.5-50, 1998.
The structure has a default constructor that initializes parameters for the ``RPROP`` algorithm. There is also a more advanced constructor to customize the parameters and/or choose the back-propagation algorithm. Finally, the individual parameters can be adjusted after the structure is created.
Unlike many other models in ML that are constructed and trained at once, in the MLP model these steps are separated. First, a network with the specified topology is created using the non-default constructor or the method ``create`` . All the weights are set to zeros. Then, the network is trained using a set of input and output vectors. The training procedure can be repeated more than once, that is, the weights can be adjusted based on the new training data.
:param _activ_func:Parameter specifying the activation function for each neuron: one of ``CvANN_MLP::IDENTITY`` , ``CvANN_MLP::SIGMOID_SYM`` , and ``CvANN_MLP::GAUSSIAN`` .
:param _f_param1,_f_param2:Free parameters of the activation function, :math:`\alpha` and :math:`\beta` , respectively. See the formulas in the introduction section.
:param _sample_weights:(RPROP only) Optional floating-point vector of weights for each sample. Some samples may be more important than others for training. You may want to raise the weight of certain classes to find the right balance between hit-rate and false-alarm rate, and so on.
***UPDATE_WEIGHTS = 1** Algorithm updates the network weights, rather than computes them from scratch (in the latter case the weights are initialized using the Nguyen-Widrow algorithm).
***NO_INPUT_SCALE** Algorithm does not normalize the input vectors. If this flag is not set, the training algorithm normalizes each input feature independently, shifting its mean value to 0 and making the standard deviation =1. If the network is assumed to be updated frequently, the new training data could be much different from original one. In this case, you should take care of proper normalization.
***NO_OUTPUT_SCALE** Algorithm does not normalize the output vectors. If the flag is not set, the training algorithm normalizes each output feature independently, by transforming it to the certain range depending on the used activation function.
