US 5,317,676 A · Apparatus and method for facilitating use of a neural network

Abstract

A neural network development utility assists a developer in generating one or more filters for data to be input to or output from a neural network. A filter is a device which translates data in accordance with a data transformation definition contained in a translate template. Source data for the neural network may be expressed in any arbitrary combination of symbolic or numeric fields in a data base. The developer selects those fields to be used from an interactive menu. The utility scans the selected field entries in the source data base to identify the logical type of each field, and creates a default translate template based on this scan. Numeric data is automatically scaled. The developer may use the default template, or edit it from an interactive editor. When editing the template, the developer may select from a menu of commonly used neural network data formats, and from a menu of commonly used primitive mathematical operations. The developer may interactively define additional filters to perform data transformations in series, thus achieving more complex mathematical operations on the data. Templates may be edited at any time during the development process. If a network does not appear to be giving satisfactory results, the developer may easily alter the template to present inputs in some other format.

Claims25

Dependent claims

An apparatus for facilitating the use of a neural network, comprising:

means for receiving source data for the neural network, said source data comprising a plurality of source data fields;
translation definition means for defining, with respect to each of said source data fields, a corresponding data transformation, wherein at least one of said data transformations is a transformation of data of one data type to data of another data type, and wherein said translation definition means comprises means for automatically generating a default data transformation definition with respect to each of said source data fields;
and
means, responsive to said translation definition means, for translating source data contained in each said source data field according to the data transformation corresponding to said source data field, to produce a neural network input.

1 more element

An apparatus for facilitating the use of a neural network, comprising:

means for receiving source data for the neural network, said source data comprising a plurality of source data fields;
translation definition means for defining, with respect to each of said source data fields, a corresponding data transformation, wherein at least one of said data transformations is a transformation of data of one data type to data of another data type, wherein said translation definition means comprises:
(a) means for generating a translate template defining, with respect to each of said source data fields, a corresponding data transformation;
(b) means for storing and retrieving said translate template;
and
(c) means for editing said translate template after it has been initially generated;
and
means, responsive to said translation definition means, for translating source data contained in each said source data field according to the data transformation corresponding to said source data field, to produce a neural network input.

5 more elements

A neural network driven artificial intelligence apparatus for producing results from source data, comprising:

a neural network, having a numeric input of a pre-defined data type and a numeric output;
means for automatically translating said source data to numeric input for said neural network, wherein said source data comprises data of a type other than said pre-defined data type of said numeric input, and wherein said means for automatically translating said source data comprises:
(a) means for generating a translate template defining, with respect to each of a plurality of source data fields, a corresponding data transformation;
(b) means for storing and retrieving said translate template;
(c) means for editing said translate template after it has been initially generated;
and
(d) means for translating source data according to the data transformation definition contained in said translate template;
and
means for presenting said source data translated to numeric input to said neural network.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Apparatus and method for facilitating use of a neural network

Life of this patent

Apparatus and method for facilitating use of a neural network

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25