From: arms@cs.UAlberta.CA (Bill Armstrong)
Subject: Re: Neural-Net Character Recognition s/w or docs???
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 05:44:29 GMT

sigurdsn@whitney.mrco.carleton.ca (Paul Sigurdson) writes:

>	I am interested in getting my hands on some type of Neural
>Net ShareWare package that deals with alphanumeric character recognition
>(for ms-dos), or any documentation of this sort of thing.
>	Does anyone have this sort of thing (and are willing to
>share)

The atree adaptive logic network (ALN) simulator has an OCR demo (with
C and C++ source code for PCs under Windows 3.x.).  The package is
quite thoroughly documented in an on-line help.

Some people have said they would like to develop full OCR systems
based on the atree demo, but so far, there are no reports of a full
OCR project being completed.  I hope some persons will comment if they
are working on one.

Anyway, here's the info about the package.

Best wishes,

Bill


THE ATREE ADAPTIVE LOGIC NETWORK SIMULATION PACKAGE

The latest release of the atree adaptive logic network (ALN)
simulation package, atree release 2.7, is available via anonymous ftp
from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241] in directory pub/ (use
binary mode).  It runs on IBM PCs and compatibles under Windows 3.x.
Included is documentation and ON-LINE HELP that will help you to
understand the basic principles of adaptive logic networks and enable
you to try out some examples of your own creation.  All C and C++
source code is provided.

The atree package is not a toy, despite the fact that it is used for
demonstration purposes, and is non-commercial.  Experimenters are
using it on challenging problems of medicine, physics and the
environment.  It has been used to grade beef based on ultrasound
images, design hardware to discriminate particles produced by an
accelerator, help to design walking prostheses for spinal cord damaged
patients and measure the composition of tarsands from spectral data.

It is possible to use inexpensive, off-the-shelf programmable logic
devices to realize the results of training ALNs in high-speed
hardware, though we do not provide those facilities in the atree
software.

Please read the license, and the warranty (that protects the
developers, not the users).  All neural networks which are "black
boxes" trained and tested on sample data are possibly unsafe, i.e.
unexpected outputs can occur. The current free atree package is no
exception.  A commercial version is planned for later release, and
eventually a safe design methodology will be available.

We shall use release 2.7 as an example here, but please see what the
latest version number is before you ftp the software by examining the
contents of pub/.  Atree release 2.7 is available in either of two
files in this directory: atre27.exe and a27exe.exe.  The file
atre27.exe contains the full C and C++ sources for those who want to
program some applications using Borland C++ 3.x and Application
Frameworks, or some similar C/C++ development environment.  The other,
smaller file contains just the executables for those who just want to
try out atree release 2.7.

Everyone should have a look at the OCR demo!  It has been referred to
as "quite impressive" by experts in the OCR area.  Test yourself
against the trained ALNs, and scribble in your own characters (similar
to the A, L, or N; or pick any language, any alphabet and then train)
to see how noisy and distorted the characters can be, yet still be
recognized by the logic networks.  The demo can be obtained without
the rest in pub/a27ocr.exe.

To set up your software on the PC under Windows 3.x, it is recommended
that you execute atre27.exe in your main directory, whereupon it will
create a subdirectory atree_27 and extract everything into it.
Running "setup" in that directory will create a group of icons you can
use to invoke demos and the facilities for programming adaptive logic
network applications in the lf language.  The "Open" command gives you
access to numerous instructive examples.  Clicking on the Help button
gives you access to explanations of theory and code.

The Unix version, atree release 2.0, will be upgraded sometime to add
some of the functionality of release 2.7.  It is not yet capable of
the nice color displays of the Windows version, but besides running on
Unix workstations it can be easily ported to Macintosh, Amiga, and
other machines.

Thanks to all those who have sent comments about their work on ALNs,
and have helped us to develop new concepts at a rapid rate. We would
appreciate your continued help in finding any problems in the latest
release.

Welcome to the world of adaptive logic networks!


	RECOMMENDED PUBLICATIONS ON ADAPTIVE LOGIC NETWORKS

W. Armstrong, Adaptive Boolean Logic Element, U. S. Patent 3934231,
Feb. 28, 1974 (multiple filings in various countries),
assigned to Dendronic Decisions Limited.

G. v. Bochmann, W. Armstrong, Properties of Boolean Functions
with a Tree Decomposition, BIT 13, 1974. pp. 1-13.

W. Armstrong, Gilles Godbout: Use of Boolean Tree Functions to Perform
High-Speed Pattern Classification and Related Tasks, Dept. d'IRO,
Universite de Montreal, Doc. de Travail #53, 1974. (unpublished,
except in summary form as follows:)

W. Armstrong and G. Godbout, Properties of Binary Trees
of Flexible Elements Useful in Pattern Recognition, IEEE 1975
International Conf. on Cybernetics and Society, San Francisco, 1975,
IEEE Cat. No. 75 CHO 997-7 SMC, pp. 447-449.

W. Armstrong and J. Gecsei, Architecture of a Tree-based
Image Processor, 12th Asilomar Conf. on Circuits, Systems
and Computers, Pacific Grove, Calif., 1978, pp. 345-349.

W. Armstrong and J. Gecsei, Adaptation Algorithms for
Binary Tree Networks, IEEE Trans. on Systems, Man and
Cybernetics, 9, 1979, pp. 276-285.

W. Armstrong, J.-D. Liang, D. Lin, S. Reynolds, Experiments Using
Parsimonious Adaptive Logic, Tech. Rept. TR 90-30, Department of
Computing Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
T6G 2H1.  This is now available in a revised form via anonymous FTP
from menaik.cs.ualberta.ca [129.128.4.241] in pub/atree2.ps.Z (the
title of the revised document is Some Results concerning Adaptive
Logic Networks).

W. Armstrong, A. Dwelly, J.-D. Liang, D. Lin, S. Reynolds, Learning
and Generalization in Adaptive Logic Networks, in Artificial Neural
Networks, Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference on
Artificial Neural Networks ( ICANN'91), Espoo,
Finland, June 24-28, 1991, T. Kohonen, K.Makisara, O. Simula, J. Kangas eds.
Elsevier Science Publishing Co. Inc. N. Y. 1991, vol. 2, pp. 1173-1176.

Allen G. Supynuk, William W. Armstrong, Adaptive Logic Networks and
Robot Control, Proc. Vision Interface Conference '92, also called
AI/VI/GI '92, Vancouver B. C., May 11-15, 1992, pp. 181 - 186.

R. B. Stein, A. Kostov, M. Belanger, W. W. Armstrong and D. B.
Popovic, Methods to Control Functional Electrical Stimulation in
Walking, First International FES Symposium, Sendai, Japan, July 23 -
25, 1992 (Invited paper, to appear).

Aleksandar Kostov, Richard B. Stein, William W. Armstrong, Monroe
Thomas, Evaluation of Adaptive Logic Networks for Control of Walking
in Paralyzed Patients, 14th Ann. Int'l Conf. IEEE Engineering in
Medicine and Biology Society, Paris, France, Oct. 29 - Nov. 1, 1992
(to appear).

Ian Parsons, W. W. Armstrong: The Use of Adaptive Logic Nets to
Quantify Tar Sands Feed (Draft), available via anonymous ftp from
menaik.cs.ualberta.cs [129.128.4.241] in pub/alntarsands.ps.Z.

In case you have difficulty in obtaining the above documents or the
atree release 2.0 software for Unix or release 2.7 for IBM-PC and
compatibles under Windows, the software and all of the above documents
prior to 1991 can be obtained from the University of Alberta for a
media fee to cover the costs of copying and mailing of $150
(Canadian), made payable to the University of Alberta.  Two 3 1/2"
diskettes are normally included but an attempt will be made to satisfy
needs for other media, e.g. tapes.  Orders can be sent to the following
address:

Prof. William W. Armstrong, Computing Science Dept.
University of Alberta; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H1
arms@cs.ualberta.ca Tel(403)492 2374 FAX 492 1071
--
***************************************************
Prof. William W. Armstrong, Computing Science Dept.
University of Alberta; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H1
arms@cs.ualberta.ca Tel(403)492 2374 FAX 492 1071
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets