What is ANN?
ANN is an information processing concept which is inspired from one of the most powerful and complex thing known to mankind-The Human Brain.The ANN is based on how the human brain processes information.The key element of this concept is the novel structure of the information processing system. It is composed of a large number of highly interconnected processing elements (neurons) working in unison to solve specific problems.
Need for ANN
Conventional computers are capable of performing logical and arithmetic operations at an exponential rate.This is because they are able to process information sequentially,one after the other at a high speed.The range of their processing may be upto a million instructions per second.Human brains are comparatively slow in this regards. But consider higher level information processing such as image processing, speech recognition,pattern matching etc.In these type of information processing the Human brain is considered to be more efficient.Computers are rather slow in these regards.The reason for these has been suggested as the highly parallel nature of human brain.Image,speech processing requires a high degree of parallel processing which is rather not obtained easily in computers.With the highly developed nature of information, conventional computer processing wont be enough how much ever it’s computing ability is increased.The ANN models the computers as a human neural structure.ANN doesn’t actually creates a computer with ‘Human Brain’ but it exaggerates certain features of human brain whereas suppresses certain other.Neural networks should be considered as a compliment to conventional computers rather than considering it as a competition to them.The most important feature of neural network is that it can train itself.Learning from changing environment is considered to be a powerful feature of neural network as there is no need of reprogramming them.It can be the basis for artificial intelligence.Another important feature of neural networks is that if at all an element of network breakdown it wont effect the overall performance of the network.This is same in the case of human neurons.
Applications of ANN
Neural networks have been successfully applied to broad spectrum of data-intensive applications.Some of them are listed below
- Pattern Recognition
Recipes and Chemical Formulation Optimization
Chemical Compound Identification
Physical System Modeling
Ecosystem Evaluation
Polymer Identification
Recognizing Genes
Botanical Classification
Signal Processing: Neural Filtering
Biological Systems Analysis
Ground Level Ozone Prognosis
Odor Analysis and Identification.
Besides these ANN have come up with applications in the fields like finance, medicine, industry,education,data mining,sales and marketing,operational analysis,marketing etc..
Even though most of the researches regarding the ANN in is a budding stage they are sure to produce far reaching development aiding the mankind..
