Tech Report available: NN module systems

[Frank Smieja]

The following technical report is available.  It will appear in the
proceedings of the AISB90 COnference in Leeds, England.  The report
exists as smieja.minos.ps.Z in the Ohio cheops account (in
/neuroprose, anonymous login via FTP).  Normal procedure for
retrieval applies.



	MULTIPLE NETWORK SYSTEMS (MINOS)  MODULES:
	TASK DIVISION AND MODULE DISCRIMINATION


It is widely considered an ultimate connectionist objective to
incorporate neural networks into intelligent {\it systems.} These
systems are intended to possess a varied repertoire of functions
enabling adaptable interaction with a non-static environment.  The
first step in this direction is to develop various neural network
algorithms and models, the second step is to combine such networks
into a modular structure that might be incorporated into a workable
system.  In this paper we consider one aspect of the second point,
namely: processing reliability and hiding of wetware details.
Presented is an architecture for a type of neural expert module, named
an {\it Authority.} An Authority consists of a number of {\it Minos\/}
modules.  Each of the Minos modules in an Authority has the same
processing capabilities, but varies with respect to its particular
{\it specialization\/} to aspects of the problem domain.  The
Authority employs the collection of Minoses like a panel of experts.
The expert with the highest {\it confidence\/} is believed, and it is
the answer and confidence quotient that are transmitted to other
levels in a system hierarchy.