new technical report available

[jacobs@gluttony.cs.umass.edu]

The following technical report is now available:

	Task Decomposition Through Competition In
	  a Modular Connectionist Architecture:
	    The What and Where Vision Tasks

		Robert A. Jacobs  (UMass)
		Michael I. Jordan (MIT)
		Andrew G. Barto   (UMASS)

	     COINS Technical Report 90-27


			Abstract
			--------

A novel modular connectionist architecture is presented in which the
networks composing the architecture compete to learn the training patterns.
An outcome of the competition is that different networks learn different 
training patterns and, thus, learn to compute different functions.
The architecture performs task decomposition in the sense that it learns
to partition a task into two or more functionally independent tasks and
allocates distinct networks to learn each task.  In addition, the 
architecture tends to allocate to each task the network whose topology
is most appropriate to that task.  The architecture's performance on
``what'' and ``where'' vision tasks is presented and compared with the
performance of two multi--layer networks.  Finally, it is noted that 
function decomposition is an underconstrained problem and, thus,
different modular architectures may decompose a function in different
ways.  We argue that a desirable decomposition can be achieved if the
architecture is suitably restricted in the types of functions that it 
can compute.  Appropriate restrictions can be found through the
application of domain knowledge.  A strength of the modular architecture
is that its structure is well--suited for incorporating domain knowledge.


If possible, please obtain a postscript version of this technical report
from the pub/neuroprose directory at cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu.

a)  Here are the directions:

unix> ftp cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu          # (or ftp 128.146.8.62)
Name (cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu:): anonymous
Password (cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu:anonymous): neuron
ftp> cd pub/neuroprose
ftp> type binary
ftp> get
(remote-file) jacobs.modular.ps.Z
(local-file) foo.ps.Z
ftp> quit
unix> uncompress foo.ps.Z
unix> lpr -P(your_local_postscript_printer) foo.ps

b)  You can also use the Getps script posted on the connectionist
    mailing list a few weeks ago.

If you do not have access to a postscript printer, copies of this
technical report can be obtained by sending requests to Connie Smith
at smith at cs.umass.edu.  Remember to ask for COINS Technical Report 90-27.