# Neural Network From Scratch¶

### Modules - Modern¶

Last edited: March 1st, 2021

This notebook will give an introduction to how a fully connected neural network is built, and how the different components work. Throughout the notebook, there will be code snippets for each component in the network, to easier see the connection between the equations and the implementations. Towards the end, all the components will be assembled into classes to make the code more functional and tidy. The problem is based on an excersice in the course TMA4320 - Introduction to Scientific Computation at NTNU.

#### Remark:¶

If you are unfamiliar with object-oriented programming, don't panic! The way in which classes are used in this notebook will be readily understood by someone with a bit of programming background; you can think of it being a practical way of collecting certain variables together with the functions you use to manipulate them. If you want to learn more you can for instance read more here.

# Problem Outline¶

The use of neural networks has had major impact on problems related to artificial intelligence. The general nature of the method makes it perform outstandingly well in a wide variety of tasks, ranging from useful applications such as image recognition and self-driving cars, to less useful applications in for example video games (where the usefulness of video games may be debated!). Another important example where neural networks may be used is to solve classification problems. These kinds of problems also arise in the physical sciences, thus the use of neural networks can in some cases also furnish insight in these fields, insight that is inaccessible if one limits oneself to the conventional methods used in numerical analysis. In a future notebook we will explore such a problem using the vast machinery provided in various Python packages for machine learning. In the present case however, we will implement the algorithms from scratch in order to provide insight into the mechanics of a neural network.

Although the problem does not have to be classification of images, to make the workings of the network less abstract, we will frequently refer to the input of the network as being an image. What we picture, is that each pixel of the image has a scalar value associated to it, say representing a grayscale value. To avoid using matrices as representation of the input, we stack the rows of the image on top of each other to create an input vector, whose dimensions necessarily will be the product of the number of pixels in each direction of the image. In the case of binary classification, the label associated to each image is either $0$ or $1$, and it represents some kind of category. If for example the problem was to be able to say whether an image showed a wolf or a husky, we could translate it to $0$ representing the wolf category and $1$ the husky category.

# What Is an Artificial Neural Network?¶

An artificial neural network (ANN) is a set of functions that are put together to mimic a biological neural network [1]. Just as a biological neural network, an ANN consists of many neurons connected together to form a complex network. In an ANN, these neurons are structured in layers. The first is called the input layer, the last layer is called the output layer and between them there is a number of hidden layers$^1$. The number of hidden layers, also known as the depth of the network, will vary depending on the complexity of the problem one want to solve with the network. Each layer holds neurons, and the number of neurons vary from network to network, and it can also vary from layer to layer in a given network.

This figure is a visualization of the network made in this notebook. The network is fully connected, and the number of neurons is the same for all layers except the output layer. This figrue shows a more general neural network. The network is not fully connected, and the number of neurons vary form layer to layer.

We will in this notebook consider an ANN in which the number of neurons in each layer is constant. More specifically, the network we will use is called ResNet, and was first mentioned in this report by Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren and Jian Sun. For simplicity, the number of neurons will be equal to the dimension of the input. We will also restrict our focus to fully connected neural networks, that is, any neuron of the network is connected to all the neurons in the next layer. These simplifications are only made to make the overall structure simpler to implement and understand, but it is important to emphasise that choosing more complicated structures may enhance performance in real applications. For such purposes, using well documented and robust Python packages such as PyTorch or TensorFlow is undoubtedly easier and better than trying to implement the algorithms yourself.

Although the fully connected network is much simpler to implement, it is more computationally expensive than a network that is not fully connected. Another advantage of choosing a more complicated structure is that it allows for treating subsets of the data differently. In that way one can in a sense lead the network into the right path. Furthermore, more complicated structures allow for more complicated and non-linear connections between the neurons.

## Overiview of Variables¶

Throughout this notebook, a lot of variables will be introduced. Here is an overview of all of them. The variable names used in the code will be in $\texttt{teletypefont}$.

\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} K = & \texttt{ num_layers} && \text{ Number of layers.} \\ I = & \texttt{ num_images} && \text{ Number of images.} \\ d = & \texttt{ dimension} && \text{ Dimension of input data.} \\ Y = & \texttt{ Y} && \text{ All output values, } y \text{, in a matrix of size [num layes + 1, num neurons]. } Y[0] \text{ is the input to the network.} \\ W = & \texttt{ weight} &&\text{ All weights, } w \text{, in a matrix of size [num layers, num neurons, num neurons].} \\ B = & \texttt{ bias_vec} &&\text{ All biases, } b \text{, in a matix for size [num layers, num neurons].} \\ \mu = & \texttt{ mu} &&\text{ Variable corresponding to a bias in the output layer.}\\ \omega = & \texttt{ omega} &&\text{ Variable corresponding to a weight in the output layer.}\\ h = & \texttt{ steplength} &&\text{ Steplength.} \\ Z_i = & \texttt{ Z} &&\text{ Output from last layer, the 'guess' of the network.} \\ c_i = & \texttt{ c} &&\text{ The correct value for an output.}\\ \mathcal{J} = & \texttt{ cost_function} &&\text{ The error/cost of the network.}\\ U = & \texttt{ U} &&\text{ Collection of all variables} W \text{, } b\text{, } \omega \text{ and } \mu \text{.}\\ \sigma = & \texttt{ sigma} &&\text{ Sigmoid function, but used generally as activation function.} \\ \eta = & \texttt{ eta} &&\text{ Projection function for output layer.} \\ \sigma ' = & \texttt{ sigma_derivative} &&\text{ The derivative of the activation function.} \\ \eta ' = & \texttt{ eta_derivative} &&\text{ The derivative of the projection function.} \\ \end{aligned} \end{equation*}

Since what we end up with is essentially a collection of many variables that we want to manipulate in different ways, and in specific orders, it is convenient to gather these in a class. In this notebook, we have made three classes which we will call $\texttt{Network}$, $\texttt{Param}$ and $\texttt{Gradient_descent}$, and the content of the classes will be explained along the way.

## How Does a Layer in the Network Work?¶

In the following, $k$ will denote the index of an arbitrary layer, $n$ an arbitrary neuron index and $i$ an arbitrary index for input vectors to the network. $K$ denotes the total number of layers and $N$ is the total number of nodes in each layer.

This figure shows how the previous layer is the input to a node in the current layer. The variable $k$ is the number of the current layer, and corresponds to the superscript of $y$. The subscript of $y$ is $n$, which tells us what neuron in the layer $y_n$ corresponds to.

Each layer takes in input form the previous layer, except the first layer which takes in the input to the network. In a fully connected layer, each neuron takes the output from every neuron in the previous layer as input. In a neuron, every input is multiplied by an individual weight and then they are all summed up. A bias is added to the sum, and then the results is passed through an activation function before it is sent as output to the next layer together with the output form every other neuron in the same layer. Why is a neuron built up like this? As mentioned in the beginning, an ANN is made to mimic a biological neural network, and in a biological neural network different stimuli 'light up' different neurons, and the signal is passed on to specific neurons. In an ANN the output value from a neuron can be interpreted as if the neuron has been 'lit up' or not. Values close to 1 means 'lit up' while values close to 0 represent an inactive neuron$^2$. By denoting the inputs to the first layer by $y^{(0)}_n$, the weights to each input to the a neuron in the first layer $w_{0,n}^{(0)}$, the bias $b_0^{(0)}$ and the activation function $f$, the output of neuron $1$ will be

$$y^{(1)}_0 = y^{(0)}_0 + h f\big( w_{0,0}^{(0)} y^{(0)}_0 + w_{0,1}^{(0)} y^{(0)}_1 + w_{0,2}^{(0)} y^{(0)}_2 + \dots + w_{0,N-1}^{(0)} y^{(0)}_{N-1} + b_0^{(0)} \big) \text{.}$$

$h$ is known as the steplength, and is a number between 0 and 1. It is the combination of the output value from each neuron in the previous layer and their corresponding weights that affect the sum in the present neuron. The bias can push the value up or down to effectively make a threshold for activation. After having transformed the input through the hidden layers, it is passed through an activation function which projects the output on a scalar between 0 and 1 in the case of binary classification. One example of an activation function is the sigmoid function:

$$\sigma(x) = \frac{1}{1 + e^{-x}}.$$

To simplify notation and calculations, matrices and vectors are used to compactly gather the weights and biases. Let the inputs to the first layer be the vector $y^{(0)}$, $W^{(0)}$ be a matrix with the weights in the first layer and $b^{(0)}$ be the biases in the first layer. $W$ consist of vectors with the weights from each neuron in the layer. The output from the first layer is then in matrix notation

\begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} \begin{bmatrix} y^{(1)}_0\\ y^{(1)}_1\\ \vdots \\ y^{(1)}_{N-1}\\ \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} y^{(0)}_0\\ y^{(0)}_1\\ \vdots \\ y^{(0)}_{N-1}\\ \end{bmatrix} + h \sigma \left( \begin{bmatrix} w^{(0)}_{0,0} & w^{(0)}_{0,1} & \dots & w^{(0)}_{0,N-1} \\ w^{(0)}_{1,0} & w^{(0)}_{1,1} & \dots & w^{(0)}_{1,N-1} \\ &\vdots \\ w^{(0)}_{N-1,0} & w^{(0)}_{N-1,1} & \dots & w^{(0)}_{N-1,N-1} \\ \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} y^{(0)}_0\\ y^{(0)}_1\\ \vdots \\ y^{(0)}_{N-1}\\ \end{bmatrix} + \begin{bmatrix} b^{(0)}_0\\ b^{(0)}_1\\ \vdots \\ b^{(0)}_{N-1}\\ \end{bmatrix} \right) \text{,} \end{aligned} \end{equation*}

or written more compactly

$$y^{(1)} = y^{(0)} + h \sigma \left(W^{(0)}y^{(0)} + b^{(0)}\right) \text{,}$$

where the sigmoid function$^3$, $\sigma$, is applied elementwise. In a fully connect neural network every neuron in one layer is connected to every neuron in the next layer, and the matrix equation above gives the output of each hidden layer in the network. It is convenient for computational purposes to send every input-vector through the transformation simultaneously. In our notation, this amounts to

$$\mathbf{Y}_{k} = \mathbf{Y}_{k-1} + h \sigma \left( W_{k-1} \mathbf{Y}_{k-1} + b_{k-1}\right).$$

## Activation Functions¶

Activation functions are what differentiate a neural network from linear regression. Without processing the output from each layer through a non-linear activation function, it would always be possible to make a single layer that is equal to the sum of any other set of layer of the same size, and the depth of the network would be insignificant. With the use of activation functions, it is possible for the network to make non-linear connections between the input and the output. Another aspect of the activation function is that it becomes more clear whether the neuron is active or inactive. One could think that the best way to show this would be a binary activation function that outputs 1 if it is active and 0 else, but then the gradient of the function will be ill-defined. It will become clear that this is very unfortunate when we discuss training of the network, where the gradient of the activation function plays a crucial role. There are many choices for activation functions, some of the most well known are sigmoid function, hyperbolic tangent and the ReLU function.

### Sigmoid¶

The sigmoid function is a well known activation function, and it outputs values between 0 and 1. It is a continuous function and makes gradient calculations simple. One downside with this function is what is called 'vanishing gradients'. That is, when the absolute value of the input takes a large value, the gradient of the sigmoid function gets very small. As we will see later, the gradient of the activation function is an important part of the learning of the network, and vanishing gradients will make the network learn very slowly [2]. The function can also be used in the output layer.

In [1]:
# Packages:
import pickle  # Python object serialization.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import seaborn as sns  # Library for statistical graphics.
from IPython.display import Image
from matplotlib import rc
from tqdm import tqdm  # Fancy progress meters.

# Setting common plotting parameters
fontsize = 22
newparams = {
"axes.titlesize": fontsize,
"axes.labelsize": fontsize,
"lines.linewidth": 2,
"lines.markersize": 7,
"figure.figsize": (13, 7),
"ytick.labelsize": fontsize,
"xtick.labelsize": fontsize,
"legend.fontsize": fontsize,
"legend.handlelength": 1.5,
"figure.titlesize": fontsize,
"figure.dpi": 400,
"text.usetex": True,
"font.family": "sans-serif",
}
plt.rcParams.update(newparams)

In [2]:
def sigmoid(x):
return np.exp(x)/(np.exp(x) + 1)

def sigmoid_derivative(x):
return 1/np.square(np.exp(x/2)+np.exp(-x/2))

x = np.linspace(-10,10,200)
plt.plot(x, sigmoid(x),label=r"$\sigma (x) = \frac{\exp{x}}{\exp{x} +1}$")
plt.plot(x, sigmoid_derivative(x),label=r"$\sigma '(x) = \left(\frac{1}{ \exp{\left(\frac{x}{2}\right)} + \exp{\left(-\frac{x}{2}\right)}}\right)^2$")
plt.title("Sigmoid function")

plt.tight_layout()
plt.legend()

plt.show()


### Hyberbolic Tangent¶

The shape of the hyperbolic tangent function is similar to the sigmoid function, but it takes values between $-1$ and $1$. According to [3], centering the values around 0 will make the network learn easier, and it often gives better results than the sigmoid function.

In [3]:
def tanh(x):
return (np.exp(2*x)-1)/(np.exp(2*x)+1)

def tanh_derivative(x):
return 4/np.square(np.exp(x)+np.exp(-x))

x = np.linspace(-10,10,200)
plt.plot(x, tanh(x),label=r"$\eta (x) = \tanh{x}$")
plt.plot(x, tanh_derivative(x),label=r"$\eta '(x) = \frac{1}{\cosh^2{x}}$")
plt.title("Hyperbolic tangent")

plt.tight_layout()
plt.legend()

plt.show()


### ReLU¶

ReLU is short for Rectified Linear Unit and is less computationally expensive than the sigmoid and hyperbolic tangent functions. It returns 0 if the input value is negative, and the value itself if the input value is positive. This function does not have an upper limit for the output values, but it shows clearly when a neuron is inactive. There exist versions of ReLU where not all negative values become zero, e.g. leaky ReLU which has a small linear slope on the negative side. For some problems it is beneficital to output zero for negative values because it shows clealy that the neuron is inactive, but some neurons can end up only outputting 0, and the neuron does not contribute to the network[4].

In [4]:
def ReLU(x):
return np.maximum(0,x)

def leakyReLU(x, a):
return np.maximum(x*a, x)

def ReLU_derivative(x):
return np.heaviside(x,0)

def leakyReLU_derivative(x, a):
return a + np.heaviside(x,0) * (1-a)

x = np.linspace(-10,10,200)

fig, axs = plt.subplots(1, 2)
axs[0].plot(x, ReLU(x), label = "ReLU")
axs[0].plot(x, ReLU_derivative(x), label = "Derivative of ReLU", ls = "-")
axs[1].plot(x, leakyReLU(x,0.1), label = "leaky ReLU")
axs[1].plot(x, leakyReLU_derivative(x, 0.1), label = "Derivative of leaky ReLU", ls = "-")
axs[0].legend()
axs[1].legend()
axs[0].set_title('ReLU')
axs[1].set_title('Leaky ReLU')

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()


### Output Layer¶

The most important part of the output layer is to downscale the dimension of the input. In this notebook the problem is a binary classification problem and the desired output is a number between 0 and 1. For other problem types, the output can be e.g. a vector, or real numbers. While most of the network can stay the same for other problems, it is important to adapt the output layer to get the desired dimensions and values. A typical output layer is

$$Z = \eta (\mathbf{Y}_K^T \omega + \mu \mathbf{1}).$$

Here $\omega$ is a vector and does the same job as the weights in a hidden layer. $\mu$ is a one dimensional vector (i.e. a scalar) and does the job of a bias, and $\mathbf{1}$ denotes the vector of the same dimension as $\omega$ containing only ones. $\eta$ is a scaling function. For the purpose of binary classification, $\eta$ normally outputs a decimal number between 0 and 1, and the sigmoid function is one of many functions that can be used. If it is desirable to output a vector, $\omega$ will be a matrix, $\mu$ will be a vector and $\eta$ will work elementwise. The output $Z$ is the guess of the network, and is implemented in the following way:

In [5]:
# Method belonging to Network class.
# self = Network
# U = Parameter belonging to Param class

def projection(self):
self.Z = self.eta(Y[-1].T@self.U.omega + self.U.mu)


During training of the neural network, this value is compared to the true value, denoted $c$, to calculate the cost of the network. That is, how far off the guess was. When starting off, all the parameters are essentially free so we expect the guess to be close to random. To improve the guess, the idea is to change the weights, biases, $\omega$ and $\mu$ in such a way as to minimize the cost.

## How Is a Network Trained?¶

If the network is already trained, the network can make a decision by "eating" input data, processing it through the hidden layers and eventually through the output layer from which it yields a decision. Before this is possible, the network must be trained. Training a neural network, means that one adjusts each weight and bias to the problem you want to solve to make the decisions as precise as possible. This is done mainly in two steps: forward propagation and backwards propagation.

### Forward Propagation¶

In forward propagation one sends in input data and lets the network make a guess. In the beginning of the training, these guesses will be mostly random, since the weights and biases are not adapted to the dataset. The guess is made by simply sending the input data through all the layers.

In [6]:
# Method belonging to Network class.
# self = Network
# U = Parameter belonging to Param class

def forward_prop(self):
for i in range(self.num_layers):
self.Y[i+1,:,:] = self.steplength*self.sigma(self.U.weight[i,:,:]@self.Y[i,:,:] + self.U.bias_vec[i])


### Backward Propagation¶

When the guess has been made, the error between the guess and the true value is measured with a cost function. The goal of the next step will be to use the information about the error to improve the subsequent guesses. A normal choice for cost function, $\mathcal{J}$ , is the square deviation of the guesses and the true values

$$\mathcal{J} = \frac{1}{2} \sum_{i=1}^{I} \vert Z_i - c_i \vert^2 = \frac{1}{2} \| \mathbf{Z} - \mathbf{c} \|^2.$$

When regarding the input data $\mathbf{Y}_k$ as given, the cost function is just a function of the parameters of the network. For simplicity, we collect all the parameters in one variable called $\mathbf{U} = [(W_k,b_k)_{k=0}^{K-1},\omega,\mu]$. We want to find the values of the parameters $\mathbf{U}$ that minimise $\mathcal{J}$. Since $\mathcal{J}$ decreases fastest locally in the direction of $-\nabla J (\mathbf{U})$, we update our parameters according to a gradient descent algorithm, where one of the simplest algorithms is the iteration

$$\mathbf{U}^{(j+1)} = \mathbf{U}^{(j)} - \tau \nabla J (\mathbf{U}^{(j)}) \text{,}$$

where $\tau$ is known as the learning parameter. This gradient descent method is called Plain Vanilla, and we will return to this method later. In the backward propagation, the gradient of the cost function with respect to all variables is calculated, and used to update the weights to minimize the cost of the network.

In [7]:
# Method belonging to network
# self = Network

def calculate_cost(self):
self.cost = 1/2*np.sum(np.square(self.Z-self.c))


To find the parameters which minimise the cost $\mathcal{J}$, we use an iterative scheme involving the local gradient of the cost $\nabla \mathcal{J}(\mathbf{U}^{(j)})$. In the following, we will derive the simplest components of the gradient, and refer to the appendix for a derivation of the more complicated ones. The perhaps simplest is the one with respect to the scalar $\mu$ used in the output layer. By the chain rule,

\begin{align} \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial \mu} = \sum_{i=1}^{I} \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial Z_i} \frac{\partial Z_i}{\partial \mu} &= \sum_{i=1}^{I} [\eta'(\mathbf{Y}_K^T \omega + \mu \mathbf{1})]_i (Z_i-c_i) \\ &= \eta'(\mathbf{Y}_K^T \omega + \mu \mathbf{1})^T (\mathbf{Z}- \mathbf{c}). \end{align}

Calculating the gradient with respect to $\mu$ is done in the following way.

In [8]:
# Method belonging to Parameters
# self = Param

first_factor = network.eta_derivative(network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:].T @ self.omega + self.mu * network.one).T
second_factor = network.Z - network.c

return first_factor @ second_factor


Similarly, we have

\begin{align} \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial \omega} &= \sum_{i=1}^{I} \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial Z_i} \frac{\partial Z_i}{\partial \omega} = \sum_{i=1}^{I} \sum_{j=1}^{d} (Z_i - c_i) [ \eta'(\mathbf{Y}_K^T \omega + \mu \mathbf{1})]_i \mathbf{Y}^T_{K,ij} \\ &= \mathbf{Y}_K^T \left( \left( \mathbf{Z} - \mathbf{c} \right) \odot \eta'(\mathbf{Y}_K^T \omega + \mu \mathbf{1}) \right), \end{align}

where we have introduced the Hadamard (element-wise) product $\odot$ defined by $(A \odot B)_{ij} = A_{ij} \cdot B_{ij}$. In numpy, we can calculate the Hadamard product of two arrays, $\texttt{X}$ and $\texttt{Y}$ (with the same shape), by using np.multiply(X,Y) or simply X * Y, wheras ordinary matrix multiplication is done with the @-operator, or np.dot(,).

In [9]:
# Method belonging to Parameters
# self = Param

first_factor = network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:]
second_factor = np.multiply((network.Z - network.c),network.eta_derivative(first_factor.T @ self.omega + self.mu * self.one))

return first_factor @ second_factor


Calculating the gradient with respect to the bias and weights is a bit messier, so we only present the results here, and provide the details in the appendix. It turns out to be useful to calculate the gradient with respect to $\mathbf{Y}_k$ in order to get these gradients. We denote this by $\mathbf{P}$, and present the following identities connecting $\mathbf{P}$ of the last layer to the previous ones.

$$\label{eq:P_K} \mathbf{P}_K = \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial \mathbf{Y}_K} = \omega \otimes \left[(\mathbf{Z} - \mathbf{c}) \odot \eta'\left( \mathbf{Y}_{K} ^{T} \omega + \mu \mathbf{1}\right) \right]^T$$$$\label{eq:P_k-1} \mathbf{P}_{k-1} = \frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial \mathbf{Y}_{k-1}} = \mathbf{P}_{k} + h W_{k-1}^{T} \cdot \left[ \sigma' \left(W_{k-1} \mathbf{Y}_{k-1} + b_{k-1} \right) \odot \mathbf{P}_{k}\right]$$

Here, the $\otimes$ denotes the outer product. Using these, we can express the gradient with respect to the weights and the biases as

$$\frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial W_k} = h \left( \mathbf{P}_{k+1} \odot \sigma' \left( W_k \mathbf{Y}_k + b_k \right) \right) \cdot \mathbf{Y}_{k}^{T},$$

and

$$\frac{\partial \mathcal{J}}{\partial b_k} = h \left( \mathbf{P}_{k+1} \odot \sigma' \left( W_k \mathbf{Y}_k + b_k \right) \right) \cdot \mathbf{1}.$$

Notice that calculating these requires to first calculate $\mathbf{P}_K$ based on $\mathbf{Y}_K$ which is obtained by the forward propagation. After this, one can calculate $\mathbf{P}_{k}$ for $k<K$, and all the components of $\mathbf{P}$ is required to calculate the gradients with respect to all the weights and biases.

In [10]:
# Method belonging to Parameters
# self = Param

def calculate_P_K(self,network):

first_factor  = network.Z - network.c
second_factor = network.eta_derivative((network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:]).T @ self.omega + self.mu * network.one)
third_factor = np.multiply(first_factor,second_factor)

self.P[self.num_layers,:,:] =  np.outer(self.omega, third_factor.T)

def calculate_P(self,network):
for k in range(self.num_layers,0,-1):
first_factor  = network.steplength * self.weight[k-1,:,:].T
second_factor = np.multiply(network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[k-1,:,:] @ network.Y[k-1,:,:] + self.bias_vec[k-1]),self.P[k,:,:])

self.P[k-1,:,:]  = self.P[k,:,:] + first_factor @ second_factor

In [11]:
# Method belonging to Parameters
# self = Param

first_factor  = network.steplength * np.multiply(self.P[index+1,:,:],network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[index,:,:] @ network.Y[index,:,:] + self.bias_vec[index]))
second_factor = network.Y[index,:,:].T

return first_factor @ second_factor

first_factor  = network.steplength * np.multiply(self.P[index+1,:,:],network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[index,:,:] @ network.Y[index,:,:] + self.bias_vec[index]))
second_factor  = network.one

return np.reshape(first_factor @ second_factor,(self.dimension,1))


### Initialization of Parameters¶

When initializing the parameters $\mathbf{U}$ in the network, one could naively think that a simple choice is to initialize all parameters to zero by using np.zeros(), but this is not a good choice. If all values of the weights are zero, the gradient will be equal to one for all weights, and the gradient will continue being equal for all weights, and the network will work only as good as a linear model [5]. There are many ways to improve the model by initializing the parameters in a way that enhance learning, but we will keep it simple, and initialize the parameters using a normal distribution. In the following cell we have made a class for all the parameters in $\mathbf{U}$, and their gradients.

In [12]:
class Param(object):
"""Parameters of neural network.

Initializes the parameters to random numbers.

Parameters
----------

K : int
number of layers
d : int
dimension of input 'images'
I : int
number of input input 'images'

Attributes
----------

num_layers : int
number of layers in total
dimension  : int
dimension of input 'image'
num_images : int
number of input images

mu         : float
mu in projection/output layer
omega      : np.array
omega in projection/output layer. shape: dimension x 1
weight     : np.array
weights. shape : num_layers x dimension x dimension
bias_vec   : np.array
bias. shape: num_layers x dimension x num_images
P          : np.array
P-matrix. shape: num_layers + 1 x dimension x num_images
"""

def __init__(self,K,d,I):
self.num_layers = K
self.dimension  = d
self.num_images = I

self.mu         =  np.random.normal()
self.omega      =  np.random.randn(self.dimension,1)
self.weight     =  np.random.randn(self.num_layers,self.dimension,self.dimension)
self.bias_vec   =  np.random.randn(self.num_layers,self.dimension,1)

self.P          =  np.zeros((self.num_layers+1,self.dimension,self.num_images))

"""Calculates the gradient with respect to mu

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
Returns
-------
_ : float
The gradient with respect to mu
"""

first_factor = network.eta_derivative(network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:].T @ self.omega +
self.mu * network.one).T
second_factor = network.Z - network.c

return first_factor @ second_factor

"""Calculates the gradient with respect to omega

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
Returns
-------
_ : np.array
The gradient with respect to omega
"""

first_factor = network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:]
second_factor = np.multiply((network.Z - network.c),
network.eta_derivative(first_factor.T @ self.omega + self.mu * network.one))

return first_factor @ second_factor

def calculate_P_K(self,network):
"""Calculates P_K

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
"""

first_factor  = network.Z - network.c
second_factor = network.eta_derivative((network.Y[self.num_layers,:,:]).T @ self.omega +
self.mu * network.one)
third_factor = np.multiply(first_factor,second_factor)

self.P[self.num_layers,:,:] = np.outer(self.omega, third_factor.T)

def calculate_P(self,network):
"""Calculates P

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member

"""

for k in range(self.num_layers,0,-1):
first_factor  = network.steplength * self.weight[k-1,:,:].T
second_factor = np.multiply(network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[k-1,:,:] @ network.Y[k-1,:,:]
+ self.bias_vec[k-1]),self.P[k,:,:])

self.P[k-1,:,:]  =  self.P[k,:,:] + first_factor @ second_factor

"""Calculates the gradient with respect to the weight

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
Returns
-------
_ : np.array
The gradient with respect to the weight
"""

first_factor  = network.steplength * np.multiply(self.P[index+1,:,:],
network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[index,:,:] @ network.Y[index,:,:] +
self.bias_vec[index]))
second_factor = network.Y[index,:,:].T
return first_factor @ second_factor

"""Calculates the gradient with respect to the bias

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
Returns
-------
_ : np.array
The gradient with respect to the bias
"""

first_factor  = network.steplength * np.multiply(self.P[index+1,:,:],
network.sigma_derivative(self.weight[index,:,:] @ network.Y[index,:,:] +
self.bias_vec[index]))
second_factor  = network.one

return np.reshape(first_factor @ second_factor,(self.dimension,1))



### Training Algorithm¶

Before explaining the gradient descent methods, we will give an outline of the training prosess. The algorithm for traning looks like this:

for $i$ in range(num_iterations):
$\hspace{1cm}$ for $k$ in range($K$):
$\hspace{2cm}$ Calculate $Y_k$
$\hspace{1cm}$ Calculate $P_K$
$\hspace{1cm}$ Calculate the gradient of $\omega$ and $\mu$
$\hspace{1cm}$ for $k$ in range(K-1, 1, -1):
$\hspace{2cm}$ Caluclate $P_{k-1}$
$\hspace{1cm}$ for $k$ in range(K-1):
$\hspace{2cm}$ Calculate the gradient of $W_k$ and $b_k$
$\hspace{1cm}$ Update $\mathbf{U}$ according to gradient descent method

In this notebook, we have chosen to make a class for each gradient descent method. To ensure that the different classes for gradient descents work in the network, we have defined three functions that all gradient descent classes must contain. These are update_first(), update_second() and update_params(). update_first() calculates the gradients of $\mu$ and $\omega$, update_second() calculates the gradients of $W$ and $b$ and update_params() updates all values of $U$ according to the gradient descent method. The implementations of these functions will be shown in the next section. The implementation of the training algorithm is shown below. The codelines followed by ## does not contribute to the traning, but is used to make a plot for the validation of network.

In [13]:
# Method beloning to the Network class
# self = Network

def train(self,h = 0.1,tau = 0.01):

self.cost_per_iter = np.zeros(self.iterations-1)
self.validation_cost_per_iter = np.zeros(self.iterations-1) ##
self.steplength = h
self.tau = tau

for i in tqdm(range(self.iterations)): #tqdm creates a progressbar

self.forward_prop(self.Y)

self.Z = self.projection(self.Y)
self.U.calculate_P_K(self)

self.U.calculate_P(self)

self.Z = self.projection(self.Y)

self.Z = self.projection(self.Y)

if i != 0:
self.cost_per_iter[i - 1] = self.cost_function()
pred = self.predict(self.validation_data, integers = False) ##
self.validation_cost_per_iter[i-1] = 1/2*(np.linalg.norm(pred-self.validation_labels))**2 ##



### Optimization¶

As mentioned, we want to find the values of $\mathbf{U}$ that minimizes $\mathcal{J}$. There are many ways to do this, and we will present two methods: The Plain Vanilla gradient descent and the Adam gradient descent.

#### Plain Vanilla¶

Plain vanilla gradient descent is one of the simplest gradient descent algorithms, and updates $\mathbf{U}$ with the iteration

$$\mathbf{U}^{(j+1)} = \mathbf{U}^{(j)} - \tau \nabla J (\mathbf{U}^{(j)}) \text{.}$$

In [14]:
class GradientDescent:
"""Virtual class for gradient descent methods for the network.
All gradient descent methods must have this form to be compatible with the Network class

Parameters
-----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
"""

def __init__(self, network):

def update_first(self, network):

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
"""

def update_second(self, network):

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
"""
for k in range(network.num_layers):

def update_params(self, network, j):
"""Updates the params of the network after the gradients have been calculated

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
j    : int
iteration of training.

"""
raise NotImplementedError

Parameters
-----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
tau : float
steplength used in the plain vanilla algorithm
"""
def __init__(self, network, tau=0.01):
self.tau = tau

def update_params(self, network, j):
"""Updates the params of the network after the gradients have been calculated

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
iter    : int
iteration of training. Irrelevant here, but important for adam descent.
"""
network.U.mu = network.U.mu - self.tau * self.gradient_mu
network.U.omega = network.U.omega - self.tau * self.gradient_omega
network.U.weight = network.U.weight - self.tau * self.gradient_weight
network.U.bias_vec = network.U.bias_vec - self.tau * self.gradient_bias_vec


The Adam descent algorithm is not as straight forward as the Plain Vanilla algorithm. One of the differences between the two algorithms is that Plain Vanilla uses the same steplength throughout the whole learning process, while Adam adapts the steplength to the gradient. We will not go in depth about how Adam works, but you can read more about it here.

$v_0 = 0$, $m_0 = 0$
for $j = 1$,$2$, $\dots$
$\hspace{1cm} g_j = \nabla_{\mathbf{U}} \mathcal{J}(\mathbf{U}^{(j)})$
$\hspace{1cm} m_j = \beta_1 m_{j-1} + (1-\beta_1) g_j$
$\hspace{1cm} v_j = \beta_2 v_{j-1} + (1-\beta_2)(g_j \odot g_j)$
$\hspace{1cm} \hat{m}_j = \frac{m_j}{1-\beta_1^j}$
$\hspace{1cm} \hat{v}_j = \frac{v_j}{1-\beta_2^j}$
$\hspace{1cm} \mathbf{U}^{(j+1)} = \mathbf{U}^{(j)} - \alpha \frac{\hat{m}_j}{\sqrt{\hat{v}_j} + \epsilon}$

where $\beta_1$, $\beta_2$, $\alpha$ and $\epsilon$ are parameters you can change to optimise the performance of the algorithm. $\odot$ is still the Hadamar product.

In [15]:
class Adam(GradientDescent):

Parameters
-----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
tau : float
steplength used in the Adam algorithm
"""
def __init__(self,network,tau = 0.01):
self.tau = tau

def update_params(self,network,j):
"""Updates the params of the network after the gradients have been calculated

Parameters
----------
network : Network
The network of which this instance is a member
j    : int
iteration of training. Irrelevant here, but important for adam.
"""

beta_1  = 0.9
beta_2  = 0.999
alpha   = self.tau
epsilon = 1e-8

if j == 0:
self.m = 0
self.v = 0
else:

self.m = beta_1 * self.m + (1-beta_1) * g_j
self.v = beta_2 * self.v + (1-beta_2) * np.multiply(g_j,g_j)

m_hat = self.m /(1-beta_1**j)
v_hat = self.v /(1-beta_2**j)

network.U.mu = network.U.mu - alpha * m_hat[0] /(np.sqrt(v_hat[0]) + epsilon)
network.U.omega = network.U.omega - alpha * m_hat[1] /(np.sqrt(v_hat[1]) + epsilon)
network.U.weight = network.U.weight - alpha * m_hat[2] /(np.sqrt(v_hat[2]) + epsilon)
network.U.bias_vec = network.U.bias_vec - alpha * m_hat[3] /(np.sqrt(v_hat[3]) + epsilon)


## Setting up the Network¶

Before we assemble the entire network class, we will introduce some helpful functions when working with machine learning.

The neural network made here is quite simple, and it is trained relatively fast. For deeper networks that are applied to more complex problems, one will normally need to work more with finding good parameters, e.g. number of layers, number of iterations and size of the different layers. The time it takes to train a model can also be considerably longer than for this network. These are some of the reasons why it is useful to be able to save and upload models during the development of a network. When making it possible to save and upload your models, it will be easier to compare models without having to train them again each time. For convenience, we include methods for doing this with this simple network as well. We have chosen to use Python dictionaries to save the models. This way it is possible to save everything form functions to numpy arrays in the same document. We also save the dictionary in a binary file using the pickle.dump function.

In [16]:
# Methods beloning to Network class.
# self = Network

def save_model(self, filename):
"""Saves a trained model. Saves all values neccesary to make predictions with the model.

Parameters
----------
filename : string
Name of binary-file to ave model to.
"""
# Create sub dictionaries to structre the data
parameters = {}
parameters['weight'] = self.U.weight
parameters['bias_vec'] = self.U.bias_vec
parameters['mu'] = self.U.mu
parameters['omega'] = self.U.omega

dimensions = {}
dimensions['K'] = self.num_layers
dimensions['d'] = self.dimension
dimensions['I'] = self.num_images
dimensions['iterations'] = self.iterations

functions = {}
functions['sigma'] = self.sigma
functions['sigma_derivative'] = self.sigma_derivative
functions['eta'] = self.eta
functions['eta_derivative'] = self.eta_derivative

# Collect all dictionaries in one
network_dict = {}
network_dict['parameters'] = parameters
network_dict['dimensions'] = dimensions
network_dict['functions'] = functions

# Save dictionary as binay file
# 'w' for write, 'b' to open as binary file (text file is default)
with open(filename, 'wb') as outfile:
pickle.dump(network_dict, outfile, pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)

"""Loads up a trained model. Sets all valules neccesary to make predictions with the model.

Parameters
----------

filename : string
Name of binary-file to load model form. The file must contain a dictionary.
"""
# Open file as binary file
# 'r' for read, add 'b' to open the file as a binary file (default is text file)

# Reads binary file using pickle

self.num_layers = network_dict['dimensions']['K']
self.dimension = network_dict['dimensions']['d']
self.num_images = network_dict['dimensions']['I']
self.iterations = network_dict['dimensions']['iterations']

# Initalize U with random values
self.U = Param(self.num_layers, self.dimension, self.num_images)

# Set the right values for U
self.U.weight = network_dict['parameters']['weight']
self.U.bias_vec = network_dict['parameters']['bias_vec']
self.U.mu = network_dict['parameters']['mu']
self.U.omega = network_dict['parameters']['omega']

self.sigma = network_dict['functions']['sigma']
self.sigma_derivative = network_dict['functions']['sigma_derivative']
self.eta = network_dict['functions']['eta']
self.eta_derivative = network_dict['functions']['eta_derivative']


### Structuring the Network¶

As seen in this notebook, a neural network consists of many variables and functions, and to keep everything tidy and readable, it is important to structure the code. We have chosen to split the implementation of parameters and the network in two separate classes, and also keep a separate class for the gradient descent method. Note that there are of course many ways to do this that would work equally well. In the following code cell we have assembled the Network class. Most of the functions and variables have been introduced already, but functions that are made to test the network will be explained in the following sections.

In [17]:
class Network():
def __init__(self, K=None, d=None, I=None,
num_iterations = None,
activation_functions_list = None,
filename = '', data = None,
rstate = 42
):
"""Initializes the network. To types of initialization: from file with set variables or from dataset.
-------
From file with set variables:
Input
------
filename : string
filename with all data necesary to make a prediction. Has to:
- Be a binary file
- Contain Python dictionary in format specified in Network.save_model()
-------
From dataset
Input
-----
K : int
Number of layers
d : int
Number of neurons in a layer
I : int
Number of intputs
activation_functions_list : list of functions
[activation function, derivative of activation function, outputlayer activation function,
derivative of outputlayer activation function]
----------