Distributing code by anonymous FTP is convenient for everyone with decent internet connections, but it has the disadvantage that it is hard to keep track of who is using the code. Every so often we need to justify our existence to someone and need to show them that there are a non-trivial number of real users out there. If you are now using, or have recently used, any of my neural net algorithms or programs (Quickprop, Cascade-Correlation, Recurrent Cascade-Correlation), I would very much appreciate it if you would send me a quick E-mail message with your name, organization, and (if it's not a secret) just a few words about what you are doing with it. (For example: "classifying textures in satellite photos".) For those of you who don't know about the availability of this code (and related papers), I enclose below some instructions on how to get these things by anonymous FTP. Thanks, Scott =========================================================================== Scott E. Fahlman Internet: sef+@cs.cmu.edu Senior Research Scientist Phone: 412 268-2575 School of Computer Science Fax: 412 681-5739 Carnegie Mellon University Latitude: 40:26:33 N 5000 Forbes Avenue Longitude: 79:56:48 W Pittsburgh, PA 15213 =========================================================================== Public-domain simulation programs for the Quickprop, Cascade-Correlation, and Recurrent Cascade-Correlation learning algorithms are available via anonymous FTP on the Internet. This code is distributed without charge on an "as is" basis. There is no warranty of any kind by the authors or by Carnegie-Mellon University. Instructions for obtaining the code via FTP are included below. If you can't get it by FTP, contact me by E-mail (sef+@cs.cmu.edu) and I'll try *once* to mail it to you. Specify whether you want the C or Lisp version. If it bounces or your mailer rejects such a large message, I don't have time to try a lot of other delivery methods. HOW TO GET IT: For people (at CMU, MIT, and soon some other places) with access to the Andrew File System (AFS), you can access the files directly from directory "/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/connect/code". This file system uses the same syntactic conventions as BSD Unix: case sensitive names, slashes for subdirectories, no version numbers, etc. The protection scheme is a bit different, but that shouldn't matter to people just trying to read these files. For people accessing these files via FTP: 1. Create an FTP connection from wherever you are to machine "ftp.cs.cmu.edu". The internet address of this machine is 128.2.206.173, for those who need it. 2. Log in as user "anonymous" with your own ID as password. You may see an error message that says "filenames may not have /.. in them" or something like that. Just ignore it. 3. Change remote directory to "/afs/cs/project/connect/code". NOTE: You must do this in a single operation. Some of the super directories on this path are protected against outside users. 4. At this point FTP should be able to get a listing of files in this directory with DIR and fetch the ones you want with GET. (The exact FTP commands you use depend on your local FTP server.) Partial contents: quickprop1.lisp Original Common Lisp version of Quickprop. quickprop1.c C version by Terry Regier, U. Cal. Berkeley. backprop.lisp Overlay for quickprop1.lisp. Turns it into backprop. cascor1.lisp Original Common Lisp version of Cascade-Correlation. cascor1.c C version by Scott Crowder, Carnegie Mellon rcc1.lisp Common Lisp version of Recurrent Cascade-Correlation. rcc1.c C version, trans. by Conor Doherty, Univ. Coll. Dublin nevprop1.15.shar Better quickprop implementation in C from U. of Nevada. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tech reports describing these algorithms can also be obtained via FTP. These are Postscript files, processed with the Unix compress/uncompress program. unix> ftp ftp.cs.cmu.edu (or 128.2.206.173) Name: anonymous Password: ftp> cd /afs/cs/project/connect/tr ftp> binary ftp> get filename.ps.Z ftp> quit unix> uncompress filename.ps.Z unix> lpr filename.ps (or however you print postscript files) For "filename", sustitute the following: qp-tr Paper on Quickprop and other backprop speedups. cascor-tr Cascade-Correlation paper. rcc-tr Recurrent Cascade-Correlation paper. precision Hoehfeld-Fahlman paper on Cascade-Correlation with limited numerical precision. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following are the published conference and journal versions of the above (in some cases shortened and revised): Scott E. Fahlman (1988) "Faster-Learning Variations on Back-Propagation: An Empirical Study" in (\it Proceedings, 1988 Connectionist Models Summer School}, D. S. Touretzky, G. E. Hinton, and T. J. Sejnowski (eds.), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos CA, pp. 38-51. Scott E. Fahlman and Christian Lebiere (1990) "The Cascade-Correlation Learning Architecture", in {\it Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2}, D. S. Touretzky (ed.), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Los Altos CA, pp. 524-532. Scott E. Fahlman (1991) "The Recurrent Cascade-Correlation Architecture" in {\it Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 3}, R. P. Lippmann, J. E. Moody, and D. S. Touretzky (eds.), Morgan Kaufmann Pulishers, Los Altos CA, pp. 190-196. Marcus Hoehfeld and Scott E. Fahlman (1992) "Learning with Limited Numerical Precision Using the Cascade-Correlation Learning Algorithm" in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, Vol. 3, no. 4, July 1992, pp. 602-611.