title: A stochastic connectionist approach for global optimization with application to pattern clustering.
abstract: In this paper, a stochastic connectionist approach is proposed for solving function optimization problems with real-valued parameters. With the assumption of increased processing capability of a node in the connectionist network, we show how a broader class of problems can be solved. As the proposed approach is a stochastic search technique, it avoids getting stuck in local optima. Robustness of the approach is demonstrated on several multi-modal functions with different numbers of variables. Optimization of a well-known partitional clustering criterion, the squared-error criterion (SEC), is formulated as a function optimization problem and is solved using the proposed approach. This approach is used to cluster selected data sets and the results obtained are compared with that of the K-means algorithm and a simulated annealing (SA) approach. The amenability of the connectionist approach to parallelization enables effective use of parallel hardware.
authors.affiliation: Technol. Deployment Int. Inc., Santa Clara, CA.
authors.forename: G P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Babu
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Murty
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Keerthi