Many neural network architectures rely on the choice of the activation function for each hidden layer. Given the activation function, the neural network is trained over the bias and the weight parameters. The bias catches the center of the activation, and the weights capture the scale. Here we propose to train the netw…
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48 results for “Activation Functions”
The choice of activation function can have a large effect on the performance of a neural network. While there have been some attempts to hand-engineer novel activation functions, the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) remains the most commonly-used in practice. This paper shows that evolutionary algorithms can discover novel…
Survey of trainable activation functions in neural networks.
problem Improving neural network performance through trainable activation functions.
method Taxonomy and comparison of recent and past models of trainable activation functions.
result Many trainable activation functions are equivalent to adding neuron layers with fixed activation functions and simple constraints.
Many activation functions have been proposed in the past, but selecting an adequate one requires trial and error. We propose a new methodology of designing activation functions within a neural network at each layer. We call this technique an "activation ensemble" because it allows the use of multiple activation functio…
Data-aware activation function customization reduces neural network error.
problem Current neural networks lack consideration for specific activation functions.
method Linear algebraic explanation and Diaconis-Shahshahani Approximation Theorem criteria for activation functions.
result Using an even activation function like seagull can reduce neural network error by orders of magnitude.
This paper provides an overview of activation functions in neural networks.
problem Confusion in activation function selection and properties in deep learning.
method Analytic review of popular activation functions.
result Clarification of activation function properties and selection.
There has been a growing interest in expressivity of deep neural networks. However, most of the existing work about this topic focuses only on the specific activation function such as ReLU or sigmoid. In this paper, we investigate the approximation ability of deep neural networks with a broad class of activation functi…
Large deviation principle for deep neural networks with ReLU activation.
problem Understanding the behavior of deep neural networks with ReLU activation.
method Proving a large deviation principle for networks with Gaussian weights and ReLU activation functions.
result Simplified expressions and power-series expansions for the ReLU case.
The most widely used activation functions in current deep feed-forward neural networks are rectified linear units (ReLU), and many alternatives have been successfully applied, as well. However, none of the alternatives have managed to consistently outperform the rest and there is no unified theory connecting properties…
Study embeddings between Barron spaces with various activation functions, focusing on RePU.
problem Understanding the influence of activation functions on infinitely wide neural networks.
method Prove embeddings by constructing push-forward maps on measures representing functions.
result Barron spaces with RePU activation have a hierarchical structure similar to Sobolev spaces.
Automatically discovers effective activation functions for deep learning.
problem Inconsistent performance of novel activation functions in deep learning networks.
method Evolutionary search for general form, gradient descent for parameters.
result Significant performance improvements over ReLU and other functions.
Study shows how activation functions impact the storage capacity of treelike neural networks.
problem Understanding the role of activation functions in neural network expressive power.
method Analysis of treelike two-layer networks with various activation functions in the infinite-width limit.
result Activation functions affect storage capacity and robustness, with nonlinearity increasing capacity and decreasing robustness.
Deep Neural Networks have been shown to be beneficial for a variety of tasks, in particular allowing for end-to-end learning and reducing the requirement for manual design decisions. However, still many parameters have to be chosen in advance, also raising the need to optimize them. One important, but often ignored sys…
Paper examines power consumption in neural networks using various activation functions.
problem Power consumption in machine learning models.
method Examines power consumption for different activation functions.
result Substantial differences in power consumption exist between activation functions.
Deep networks can approximate various activation functions with modest adjustments.
problem Expressive power of deep neural networks with diverse activation functions.
method Approximation of any activation function in set A by ReLU networks with specific scaling factors.
result Approximation of any activation function in a specific subset of A by ReLU networks with (1,1) scaling factors.
We explore the efficacy of using a novel activation function in Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in characterizing exoplanets into different classes. We call this Saha-Bora Activation Function (SBAF) as the motivation is derived from long standing understanding of using advanced calculus in modeling habitability score …
Periodic activation functions improve neural network reliability and interpretability.
problem Neural networks reinforce hidden biases, making them unreliable and hard to interpret.
method Introduce periodic activation functions in Bayesian neural networks to establish a connection with stationary Gaussian process priors.
result Periodic activation functions, including sinusoidal, triangular, and ReLU, improve model performance and sensitivity to perturbations.
Hi-fi priors enhance BNNs by learning flexible activations.
problem Challenging to impose function-space priors on BNNs.
method Optimization techniques to learn flexible activations.
result BNNs with flexible activations can achieve desired priors.
A new Universal Activation Function improves performance across various machine learning tasks.
problem Achieving near optimal performance in different machine learning tasks.
method Optimization algorithms evolve the UAF's parameters to match the optimal activation function for each task.
result The UAF converges to near optimal performance in classification, quantification, and reinforcement learning tasks.
The study proves a quantitative functional CLT for neural networks with smooth activation functions.
problem Understanding the convergence rates of neural networks with different activation functions.
method Functional versions of the Stein-Malliavin approach and a quantitative functional central limit theorem.
result Rates of convergence depend on the smoothness of the activation function, ranging from logarithmic to sqrt(n).
This research improves neural network performance with adaptive activation functions in sparse data settings.
problem Limited data availability in scientific and engineering problems.
method Investigation of two types of adaptive activation functions with individual trainable parameters.
result Adaptive activation functions, especially with individual trainable parameters, enhance prediction accuracy and confidence in sparse data settings.
Quantized neural networks can represent all fixed-point functions under certain conditions.
problem Expressive power of quantized neural networks under fixed-point arithmetic.
method Analyzing necessary and sufficient conditions for quantized networks to represent all fixed-point functions.
result Various popular activation functions satisfy the sufficient condition for representing all fixed-point functions.
This paper explores adaptive neural activation in RNNs for better learning.
problem Fixed neural activation functions limit the performance and adaptability of RNNs.
method Developed a novel parametric family of nonlinear activation functions inspired by biological neurons.
result Adaptive neural activation improves learning speed and performance in RNNs.
Study active learning of PTFs with derivative access.
problem Active learning of polynomial threshold functions (PTFs).
method Algorithm for active learning degree- univariate PTFs with derivative access.
result Computational efficient algorithm for active learning degree- univariate PTFs.
Common nonlinear activation functions used in neural networks can cause training difficulties due to the saturation behavior of the activation function, which may hide dependencies that are not visible to vanilla-SGD (using first order gradients only). Gating mechanisms that use softly saturating activation functions t…
Learning automatically the best activation function for the task is an active topic in neural network research. At the moment, despite promising results, it is still difficult to determine a method for learning an activation function that is at the same time theoretically simple and easy to implement. Moreover, most of…
An artificial neuron is modelled as a weighted summation followed by an activation function which determines its output. A wide variety of activation functions such as rectified linear units (ReLU), leaky-ReLU, Swish, MISH, etc. have been explored in the literature. In this short paper, we explore what happens when the…
New activation functions achieve arbitrary-accuracy Sobolev approximation by fixed-size neural networks.
problem Approximation of Sobolev functions by neural networks
method Elementary Universal Activation Function and Differentiable Universal Activation Functions
result Arbitrary-accuracy Sobolev approximation by fixed-size neural networks
Rational neural networks approximate functions more efficiently with less depth.
problem Choosing optimal nonlinear activation functions in neural networks.
method Rational activation functions with optimal bounds and efficiency proofs.
result Rational neural networks approximate smooth functions more efficiently than ReLU networks with exponentially smaller depth.
New activation function BrownianReLU improves LSTM network performance on financial time series.
problem Gradient instability in noisy financial time series data.
method Introduces BrownianReLU, a stochastic activation function based on Brownian motion.
result Significantly improved predictive accuracy and generalization on financial datasets.
Fast generalization error bound of deep learning without scale invariance of activation functionsstat.ML
In theoretical analysis of deep learning, discovering which features of deep learning lead to good performance is an important task. In this paper, using the framework for analyzing the generalization error developed in Suzuki (2018), we derive a fast learning rate for deep neural networks with more general activation …
Develops wavelet-based neural network approximation theory.
problem Analyzing neural network approximation capabilities over various activation functions.
method Wavelet frame theory on spaces of homogeneous type, sufficient conditions for approximation, error estimates.
result Derives sufficient conditions for neural networks to approximate any functions in a given space, including non-smooth activations.
Complexity Measures for Neural Networks with General Activation Functions Using Path-based Normscs.LG
Complexity measures for neural nets with general activations using path-based norms.
problem Control complexity of neural networks with arbitrary activation functions.
method Approximate general activations with ReLU networks and derive path-based norms for complexity control.
result Preliminary analyses of function spaces and regularized estimators.
An appropriate choice of the activation function (like ReLU, sigmoid or swish) plays an important role in the performance of (deep) multilayer perceptrons (MLP) for classification and regression learning. Prototype-based classification learning methods like (generalized) learning vector quantization (GLVQ) are powerful…
Investigating the interaction between gradient-only line searches and different activation functionsstat.ML
Gradient-only line searches (GOLS) adaptively determine step sizes along search directions for discontinuous loss functions resulting from dynamic mini-batch sub-sampling in neural network training. Step sizes in GOLS are determined by localizing Stochastic Non-Negative Associated Gradient Projection Points (SNN-GPPs) …
Unified framework proves neural networks' ability to mimic complex tasks.
problem Lack of a single constructive framework for neural network universality.
method Introduces neural network approximate identity (nAI) and proves it leads to universality.
result Any nAI activation function is universal.
Active learning is an important technique to reduce the number of labeled examples in supervised learning. Active learning for binary classification has been well addressed in machine learning. However, active learning of the reject option classifier remains unaddressed. In this paper, we propose novel algorithms for a…
We present analytical exploration of novel activation functions as consequence of integration of several ideas leading to implementation and subsequent use in habitability classification of exoplanets. Neural networks, although a powerful engine in supervised methods, often require expensive tuning efforts for optimize…
The choice of activation function can significantly influence the performance of neural networks. The lack of guiding principles for the selection of activation function is lamentable. We try to address this issue by introducing our variational neural networks, where the activation function is represented as a linear c…
Artificial neural networks typically have a fixed, non-linear activation function at each neuron. We have designed a novel form of piecewise linear activation function that is learned independently for each neuron using gradient descent. With this adaptive activation function, we are able to improve upon deep neural ne…
Finding minimum distortion of adversarial examples and thus certifying robustness in neural network classifiers for given data points is known to be a challenging problem. Nevertheless, recently it has been shown to be possible to give a non-trivial certified lower bound of minimum adversarial distortion, and some rece…
Neural networks struggle with periodic functions, a new activation fixes this.
problem Neural networks fail to learn simple periodic functions.
method Proposed a new activation function, , to learn periodic functions.
result The new activation function successfully learns and predicts periodic functions.
New method estimates active subspaces for jump-discontinuous functions.
problem Estimating active subspaces for discontinuous functions like ABMs.
method Extending active subspaces to discontinuous functions, using Gaussian process.
result Identifies important parameters in ABM simulations of refugee movement.
Efficiently identifies key input variables for expensive functions using active learning.
problem Efficiently identify key input variables for expensive, black-box functions.
method Proposes novel active learning acquisition functions targeting derivative-based global sensitivity measures (DGSMs) under Gaussian process surrogate models.
result Active learning substantially enhances sample efficiency of DGSM estimation, especially with limited evaluation budgets.
To improve how neural networks function it is crucial to understand their learning process. The information bottleneck theory of deep learning proposes that neural networks achieve good generalization by compressing their representations to disregard information that is not relevant to the task. However, empirical evid…
Activation functions play a key role in providing remarkable performance in deep neural networks, and the rectified linear unit (ReLU) is one of the most widely used activation functions. Various new activation functions and improvements on ReLU have been proposed, but each carry performance drawbacks. In this paper, w…
Extension of Symmetrized Neural Network Operators with Fractional and Mixed Activation Functionsstat.ML
We extend neural networks with fractional and mixed activation functions for better function approximation.
problem Limitations in approximating higher-order smooth functions in complex spaces.
method Incorporating fractional exponents in activation functions and defining new density functions.
result Improved accuracy and broader applicability of neural network approximation theory.
Graph neural networks (GNNs) have been shown to replicate convolutional neural networks' (CNNs) superior performance in many problems involving graphs. By replacing regular convolutions with linear shift-invariant graph filters (LSI-GFs), GNNs take into account the (irregular) structure of the graph and provide meaning…