Deep learning neural networks are relatively straightforward to define and train given the wide adoption of open source libraries. Nevertheless, neural networks remain challenging to configure and train. In his 2012 paper titled “Practical Recommendations for Gradient-Based Training of Deep Architectures” published as a preprint and a chapter of the popular 2012 book “Neural Networks: […]
Neural network models are trained using stochastic gradient descent and model weights are updated using the backpropagation algorithm. The optimization solved by training a neural network model is very challenging and although these algorithms are widely used because they perform so well in practice, there are no guarantees that they will converge to a good […]
Deep learning neural networks are challenging to configure and train. There are decades of tips and tricks spread across hundreds of research papers, source code, and in the heads of academics and practitioners. The book “Neural Networks: Tricks of the Trade” originally published in 1998 and updated in 2012 at the cusp of the deep […]
Better Deep Learning Neural Networks Crash Course. Get Better Performance From Your Deep Learning Models in 7 Days. Configuring neural network models is often referred to as a “dark art.” This is because there are no hard and fast rules for configuring a network for a given problem. We cannot analytically calculate the optimal model […]
Deep learning neural networks learn a mapping function from inputs to outputs. This is achieved by updating the weights of the network in response to the errors the model makes on the training dataset. Updates are made to continually reduce this error until either a good enough model is found or the learning process gets […]
The capacity of a deep learning neural network model controls the scope of the types of mapping functions that it is able to learn. A model with too little capacity cannot learn the training dataset meaning it will underfit, whereas a model with too much capacity may memorize the training dataset, meaning it will overfit […]
Modern deep learning libraries such as Keras allow you to define and start fitting a wide range of neural network models in minutes with just a few lines of code. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to configure a neural network to get good performance on a new predictive modeling problem. The challenge of getting good […]
Do you want to do machine learning using Python, but you’re having trouble getting started? In this post, you will complete your first machine learning project using Python. In this step-by-step tutorial you will: Download and install Python SciPy and get the most useful package for machine learning in Python. Load a dataset and understand […]
An interesting benefit of deep learning neural networks is that they can be reused on related problems. Transfer learning refers to a technique for predictive modeling on a different but somehow similar problem that can then be reused partly or wholly to accelerate the training and improve the performance of a model on the problem […]
Training a neural network can become unstable given the choice of error function, learning rate, or even the scale of the target variable. Large updates to weights during training can cause a numerical overflow or underflow often referred to as “exploding gradients.” The problem of exploding gradients is more common with recurrent neural networks, such […]
