What is a Neural Network

A Neural Network is a working system at the heart of a Deep Learning algorithm

that helps it process raw data.

In fact, Neural Networks are pretty much like the human brain.

Like our brain that’s formed of a network of neurons, Neural Networks are based
on connected nodes or units – technically known as artificial neurons. Their job? To
identify hidden correlations and patterns in raw data, classify them, and
continuously improve.

But why bother learning about Neural Networks? As mentioned, neutral networks
sit at the center of all Deep Learning algorithms. So to understand a model or create
one, you need to first dive into the architecture of a Neural Network.

With the basics out of the way, let’s look at the three main types of Neural
Networks.

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)

Most consider Artificial Neural Networks synonymous with Neural Networks.
However, both aren’t one and the same. Instead, an ANN is a type of Neural
Network.

ANN is essentially a feed-forward network because of the way information travels

through it — from one layer to another without touching a node twice.

This type of neural system — patterned around how neurons work in our brain —
recognizes patterns in raw data, helping solve complex processes.

Another similarity with the human brain: the ANN improves with every new input
it gets. In a nutshell, ANN makes independent improvements — or is continuously
improving.

Now to dive into the composition of this Neural Network. The ANN is based on
three or more interconnected layers of nodes — again, similar to the brain.
All layers are responsible for inputting, processing, and outputting data to the
deeper layers. Such an interlayered system is what helps this Neural Network
understand and learn complex things.

How Artificial Neural Networks work

What should you use ANNs for?

Owing to its tiered layering, the ANN is used in technology focusing on complex
problem solving such as pattern recognition problems.Examples include:

• Predictive analysis for business intelligence.

• Speech-to-text transcription application.
• Handwriting and facial recognition.
• Spam email detection.
• Weather prediction.
Take a look at the more ways AI is used in business.

Advantages of using an ANN

ANNs can bring many perks with their use, here are some of the main ones:

Adaptive nature. Meaning: the Neural Network modifies itself post the initial
training with subsequent information that it processes.

Enhanced learning ability. Once trained, the ANN can learn events on its own. It can
also make decisions or generate outcomes by comparing the problem with similar
events. Due to their node strength, ANNs can perform multiple tasks at a time.

Gradual corruption. A fault in one or a handful of cells in the ANN doesn’t stop it
from delivering output. Not only does this benefit make the Neural Network fault-
tolerant but it also means that corruption tends to be slow. In fact, it occurs over
time so you aren’t left with an immediate problem on your hand.

Distributed information storage. Unlike information storage in traditional

programming, the ANN stores information on the entire network — not a specific
database. This is another reason why it’s fault-tolerant. A few pieces of missing
information in one place don’t bring the entire system down but are treated as
outliers

Challenges of using an ANN

However, despite their many advantages, Artificial Neural Networks can also pose
some challenges, which make it worth it to assess your company’s needs and
resources before deciding to train ANN:

It takes copious amounts of data to train an ANN. The training consists of providing
input to the network and telling it what the output should be.

Difficulty training the network. There is no specific rule for determining the
structure of Artificial Neural Networks — it often takes trial and error to get it right.

• The architecture can be fuzzy. When ANN gives a problem solution, it does
not explicitly outline why and how this result was achieved.
Convolution Neural Networks (CNN)
Convolution Neural Networks are mainly credited for their role in image and video
recognition, recommendation systems, and image analysis and classification.

Prior to it, manual labor was involved in identifying objects in images. CNN,
however, has helped scale the process by using linear algebra principles to identify
patterns in images.

So how do CNNs work? CNNs are based on three main layers. These are:

• Convolutional layer
• Pooling layer
• Fully-connected layer

With each layer, the CNN’s complexity in understanding the image increases. This
means the first layers focus on interpreting simple features in an image such as its
edges and colors. As the image processes through layers, the network is able to
recognize complex features such as object shapes. Finally, the deepest layer is able
to identify the target object.

What should you use CNNs for?

Broadly, this type of Neural Network is used for Computer Vision.

Essentially, Computer Vision is an AI field that’s responsible for identifying

meaningful information from visual inputs, images, and videos. For example,
identifying dogs from a pile of images.

Such CNN-powered Computer Vision has several applications including:

• Recommend products that will likely complement an existing product or

wardrobe.
• Provide suggestions for tagging people in a photograph as social media
platforms do.
• Identify items as Computer Vision currently does for helping doctors better
recognize cancerous tumors.
Advantages of using CNNs

CNNs show one main advantage:

• It automatically detects features without human supervision. This gives it an

edge over its predecessors.

Challenges of using CNNs

As for its drawbacks, there are two main ones:

• Difficulty in dealing with variance in the data presented. CNN has a hard time
processing objects in images that are hidden to an extent. With image
classification too, the network has difficulty classifying titled or rotated
images. Put simply, CNN can’t encode an object’s orientation and position
and can’t process spatially invariant data.
• Computationally demanding. Training CNN requires numerous graphical
processing units (GPUs). To add to that, if you lack good GPUs, the training
becomes slow.

Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN)

RNNs are unique on account of their ability to process both past data and input
data — and memorize things — and were developed to overcome the weaknesses
of the feed-forward network. Practical applications include Google’s voice search
and Apple's Siri.

Like ANN and CNN, RNN also learns with training data. From there on, it doesn’t
process data on inputted data alone. Instead, it uses data from past inputs to make
decisions too. In a nutshell, this architecture is built for having a ‘memory’.

What should you use RNN for?

Because RNN has an internal memory, it can make relatively precise predictions.
What’s more, it’s useful for solving sequential data-based problems.

Keeping this in mind, RNN applications include:

• Prediction problems
• Machine translation
 • Speech recognition
• Sentiment Analysis
• Stock price forecasting
• Generating text and language modeling

Advantages of RNNs

Recurrent Neural Networks have unique abilities as opposed to other kinds of

Neural Networks, which open a wide range of possibilities for their users —
however, also bring some challenges with them. Here’s a rundown of the main
benefits:

• It’s the only Neural Network with memory and double data processing.
• It can map out several inputs and outputs. Unlike other algorithms that
deliver one output for one input, the benefit of RNN is that it can map out
many to many, one to many, and many to one input and outputs.

Above all, RNNs have an in-depth understanding of sequences and their context in
contrast with other Neural Networks.

Challenges of RNNs

With great benefits, naturally, come a few challenges:

• Slow and complex training. In comparison with other networks, RNN takes a
lot of time in training. To add to that, the training is quite complex and
difficult to implement.
• Exploring or vanishing gradient concern. Due to the way the layers are
arranged in an RNN model, the sequence typically gets rather long. This
results in the model training with exploding or null weights, leading to
gradient concerns.
• RNNs can’t be stacked up. For the RNN model to work, each node requires
the output of the previous one. This means you can’t stack up training or pair
this model with another model. In turn, this leads to high computational
expenses.