Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - Old Questions

8.  What is a Neural Network? Explain any one type of neural network with practical example.

• Neural Networks are networks of neurons, for example, as found in real (i.e. biological) brains.
• Artificial neurons are crude approximations of the neurons found in real brains. They may be physical devices, or purely mathematical constructs.
• Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are networks of Artificial Neurons and hence constitute crude approximations to parts of real brains. They maybe physical devices, or simulated on conventional.
• Computers point of view, an ANN is just a parallel computational system consisting of many simple processing elements connected together in a specific way in order to perform a particular task.

An artificial neural network is a composed of a large number of highly interconnected processing elements (neurons) working in unison to solve specific problem. ANN has a number of input channels, a processing stages and output.

Feed-forward Neural Network

Feed-forward ANNs allow signals to travel one way only; from input to output. There is no feedback (loops) i.e. the output of any layer does not affect that same layer. Feed-forward ANNs tend to be straight forward networks that associate inputs with outputs. They are extensively used in pattern recognition.