title: A pruning method for the recursive least squared algorithm.
abstract: The recursive least squared (RLS) algorithm is an effective online training method for neural networks. However, its conjunctions with weight decay and pruning have not been well studied. This paper elucidates how generalization ability can be improved by selecting an appropriate initial value of the error covariance matrix in the RLS algorithm. Moreover, how the pruning of neural networks can be benefited by using the final value of the error covariance matrix will also be investigated. Our study found that the RLS algorithm is implicitly a weight decay method, where the weight decay effect is controlled by the initial value of the error covariance matrix; and that the inverse of the error covariance matrix is approximately equal to the Hessian matrix of the network being trained. We propose that neural networks are first trained by the RLS algorithm and then some unimportant weights are removed based on the approximate Hessian matrix. Simulation results show that our approach is an effective training and pruning method for neural networks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong.
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: K W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Sum
authors.forename: L W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008954:Models, Biological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer