A Structure-Adaptive Hybrid RBF-BP Classifier with an Optimized Learning Strategy

The pigeon as a machine: Complex category structures can be acquired by a simple associative model

Never known for its smarts, the pigeon has proven to be a prodigious classifier of complex visual stimuli. What explains its surprising success? Does it possess elaborate executive functions akin to those deployed by humans? Or does it effectively deploy an unheralded, but powerful associative learning mechanism? In a series of experiments, we first confirm that pigeons can learn a variety of category structures - some devised to foil the use of advanced cognitive processes. We then contrive a simple associative learning model to see how effectively the model learns the same tasks given to pigeons. The close fit of the associative model to pigeons' categorization behavior provides unprecedented support for associative learning as a viable mechanism for mastering complex category structures and for the pigeon's using this mechanism to adapt to a rich visual world. This model will help guide future neuroscientific research into the biological substrates of visual cognition.

The Lords of the Rings: People and pigeons take different paths mastering the concentric-rings categorization task

COVIS (COmpetition between Verbal and Implicit Systems; Ashby, Alfonso-Reese, & Waldron, 1998) is a prominent model of categorization which hypothesizes that humans have two independent categorization systems - one declarative, one associative - that can be recruited to solve category learning tasks. To date, most COVIS-related research has focused on just two experimental tasks: linear rule-based (RB) tasks, which purportedly encourage declarative rule use, and linear information-integration (II) tasks, which purportedly require associative learning mechanisms. We introduce and investigate a novel alternative: the concentric-rings task, a nonlinear category structure that both humans and pigeons can successfully learn and transfer to untrained exemplars. Yet, despite their broad behavioral similarities, humans and pigeons achieve their successful learning through decidedly different means. As predicted by COVIS, pigeons appear to rely solely on associative learning mechanisms, whereas humans appear to initially test but subsequently reject unidimensional rules. We discuss how variants of our concentric-rings task might yield further insights into which category-learning mechanisms are shared across species, as well as how categorization strategies might change throughout training.

Prediction of Mumps Incidence Trend in China Based on Difference Grey Model and Artificial Neural Network Learning

Background:

We aimed to compare the prediction efficiency of back propagation (BP) network and grey model (GM) (1.1) for mumps infectious diseases and compare the application effect of the two models.

Methods:

By calculating the average incidence rate of mumps in January 2014 –2016, we conducted the modeling of the BP time series, GM (1,1) grey model and the combination models of them, and predicted the incidence rate in June 2016 in comparison with the actual one. We compared the quarterly incidence rate to test the two prediction models, and compared the advantages and disadvantages of these models.

Results:

R value of BP model was 68.45%, for GM (1,1) was 58.49%, and for combined forecasting model was 86.95%. We used the principal component analysis clustering method to control the samples, and found that the samples were close to the population mean. We found that the GM (1.1) model was more suitable for the prediction of mumps infection mode. We carried out dimension reduction analysis on the model data, and the accuracy of the data after dimension reduction is within the range of Da. For the discrete degree of the data in the combined model, matlab pipeline was used to verify the reliability of the data and results. By calculation after manifold optimization small error probability was P=0.875 and semi mean relative error 2.43%.

Conclusion:

BP, GM (1,1) is a better method for modeling the epidemic trend of mumps in China, but the efficiency of prediction is not as high as the combination of them.