Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!apollo!ulowell!hawk!sbrunnoc
From: sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Neural Nets???  BUMBLE-BEE!
Message-ID: <9332@swan.ulowell.edu>
Date: 27 Sep 88 20:32:00 GMT
References: <551@epicb.UUCP>
Sender: news@swan.ulowell.edu
Reply-To: sbrunnoc@hawk.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock)
Distribution: comp.ai.neural-nets
Organization: University of Lowell, CS Dept.
Lines: 37

In article <551@epicb.UUCP> david@epicb.UUCP (David P. Cook) writes:
> What's the deal???   Neural nets are the wave of the future... I know
> there are LOTS of people and research institutions working on them out
> there and there are already several commercially available products.

  Having attended the INNS conference and trying out many of the exhibitor's
products firsthand, I am not impressed with what is commercially available
in terms of neural network products and programs.

  I believe that most of the products at the conference can be categorized
into three groups: books, programs to allow people to build neural networks,
and handwriting analyzers.
 
  Books, I cannot complain about. Neural net builders are nice but not
groundbreaking. The handwriting analyzers did not fare well with me. 
These neural net programs didn't do any better than signature table
products of twenty years ago. Of course the neural net programs can be
retrained. But Nestor's handwriting analyzer, after five days of training
by various attendees of the coference, gave me a response of "re11o"
after I wrote "hello". My handwriting is legible, and I was not trying
to fool the machine. 
 
  My criteria for a good handwriting analyzer is one that can recognize
letters that are written on its side or upside-down. I bet there are some
neural-nets out there that can do this.

> So... to get the ball rolling... can anyone give me more scoop on the
> BUMBLEBEE system... supposedly it contained roughly the same number of
> neurons as a bumble-bee.  I'd love to see it, it bet it flys! (no pun
> intended... or was it :-)  

  Sorry, but in terms of biological modelling, the best that has been done
(that I know of) is a neural network that can simulate the movement of a
round worm (Computer Simulation of the Motor-Neural System of a Simple
Invertebrate, E. Niebur and P. Erdos).

			Sean Brunnock