Supervised Learning with Hybrid Global Optimisation Methods. Case Study: Automated Recognition and Classification of Cork Tiles
Supervised Neural Network (NN) learning is a process in which input patterns and known targets are presented to a NN while it learns to recognize (classify, map, fit, etc.) them as desired. The learning is mathematically defined as an optimisation problem, i.e., an error function representing the differences between the desired and actual output, is being minimized (Bishop, 1995; Haykin, 1999). Because the most popular supervised learning techniques are gradient based (Backpropagation BP), they suffer from the so-called Local Minima Problem (Bishop, 1995). This has motivated the employment of Global Optimisation (GO) methods for the supervised NN learning. Stochastic and heuristic GO approaches including Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) demonstrated promising performance over the last decades (Smagt, 1994; Sexton et al., 1998; Jordanov & Georgieva, 2007; etc.). EA appeared more powerful than BP and its modifications (Sexton et al., 1998; Alba & Chicone 2004), but hybrid methods that combine the advantages of one or more GO techniques and local searches were proven to be even better (Yao, 1999; Rocha et al., 2003; Alba & Chicano, 2004; Ludemir et al., 2006). Hybrid methods were promoted over local searches and simple population based techniques in Alba & Chicone (2004). The authors compared five methods: two BP implementations (gradient descent and Levenberg-Marquardt), Genetic Algorithms (GA), and two hybrid methods, combining GA with different local methods. The methods were used for NN learning applied to problems arising in medicine. Ludemir et al. (2006) optimized simultaneously NN weights and topology with a hybrid method combining Simulated Annealing (SA), Tabu Search (TS) and BP. A set of new solutions was generated on each iteration by TS rules, but the best solution was only accepted according to the probability distribution as in conventional SA. Meanwhile, the topology of the NN was also optimized and the best solution was kept. Finally, BP was used to train the best NN topology found in the previous stages. The new methodology compared favorably with SA and TS on four classification and one prediction problems. Plaginakos et al. (2001) performed several experiments to evaluate various training methods – six Differential Evolution (DE) implementations (with different mutation operators), BP, BPD (BP with deflection), SA, hybridization of BP and SA (BPSA), and GA. They reported O pe n A cc es s D at ab as e w w w .in te ch w eb .o rg
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