NeuroCOLT

Neural Networks and Computational Learning Theory

 

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NeuroCOLT Technical Report NC-TR-96-028

Threshold Functions, Decision Lists, and the Representation of Boolean Functions

Martin Anthony
London School of Economics
UK

Abstract
We describe a geometrically-motivated technique for data classification. Given a finite set of points in Euclidean space, each classified according to some target classification, we use a hyperplane to separate off a set of points all having the same classification; these points are then deleted from the database and the procedure is iterated until no points remain. We explain how such an iterative `chopping procedure' leads to a type of decision list classification of the data points and in a classification of the data by means of a linear threshold artificial neural network with one hidden layer. In the case where the data points are all the $2^n$ vertices of the Boolean hypercube, the technique produces a neural network representation of Boolean functions differing from the obvious one based on a function's disjunctive normal formula.

 

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