Introduction to ANN

An Artificial Neural Network is a network of many very simple processors ("units"), each possibly having a (small amount of) local memory. The units are connected by unidirectional communication channels ("connections"), which carry numeric (as opposed to symbolic) data. The units operate only on their local data and on the inputs they receive via the connections.The design motivation is what distinguishes neural networks from other mathematical techniques: A neural network is a processing device, either an algorithm, or actual hardware, whose design was motivated by the design and functioning of human brains and components thereof.
There are many different types of Neural Networks, each of which has different strengths particular to their applications. The abilities of different networks can be related to their structure, dynamics and learning methods.
Neural Networks offer improved performance over conventional technologies in areas which includes: Machine Vision, Robust Pattern Detection, Signal Filtering, Virtual Reality, Data Segmentation, Data Compression, Data Mining, Text Mining, Artificial Life, Adaptive Control, Optimisation and Scheduling, Complex Mapping and more.



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http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stneunet.html