NEW BOOK ON SELF-ORGANIZATION AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS

[Patrick De Maziere]

         NEW BOOK ON SELF-ORGANIZATION AND TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS

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       Title:     Faithful Representations and Topographic Maps
                  From Distortion- to Information-based Self-organization

       Author:    Marc M. Van Hulle

       Publisher: J. Wiley & Sons, Inc.

       Publication Date: February 2000


with forewords by Teuvo Kohonen and Helge Ritter

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A new perspective on topographic map formation and the advantages
of information-based learning

The study of topographic map formation provides us with important tools
for both biological modeling and statistical data modeling. Faithful
Representations and Topographic Maps offers a unified, systematic
survey of this rapidly evolving field, focusing on current knowledge
and available techniques for topographic map formation. The author
presents a cutting-edge, information-based learning strategy for
developing equiprobabilistic topographic maps -- that is, maps in which
all neurons have an equal probability to be active --, clearly
demonstrating how this approach yields faithful representations and how
it can be successfully applied in such areas as density estimation,
regression, clustering, and feature extraction.

The book begins with the standard approach of distortion-based
learning, discussing the commonly used Self-Organizing Map (SOM)
algorithm and other algorithms, and pointing out their inadequacy for
developing equiprobabilistic maps. It then examines the advantages of
information-based learning techniques, and finally introduces a new
algorithm for equiprobabilistic topographic map formation using
neurons with kernel-based response characteristics.

The complete learning algorithms and simulation details are given
throughout, along with comparative performance analysis tables and
extensive references. Faithful Representations and Topographic Maps is
an excellent, eye-opening guide for neural network researchers,
industrial scientists involved in data mining, and anyone interested in
self-organization and topographic maps.

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"I am convinced that this book marks an important contribution to
the field of topographic map representations and that it will
become a major reference for many years." (Ritter)

"This book will provide a significant contribution to our theoretical
understanding of the brain." (Kohonen)

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