Understanding and Improving Convolutional Neural Networks via Concatenated Rectified Linear Units

Wenling Shang, Kihyuk Sohn, Diogo Almeida, Honglak Lee
Proceedings of The 33rd International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 48:2217-2225, 2016.

Abstract

Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used as a powerful tool to solve many problems of machine learning and computer vision. In this paper, we aim to provide insight on the property of convolutional neural networks, as well as a generic method to improve the performance of many CNN architectures. Specifically, we first examine existing CNN models and observe an intriguing property that the filters in the lower layers form pairs (i.e., filters with opposite phase). Inspired by our observation, we propose a novel, simple yet effective activation scheme called concatenated ReLU (CReLU) and theoretically analyze its reconstruction property in CNNs. We integrate CReLU into several state-of-the-art CNN architectures and demonstrate improvement in their recognition performance on CIFAR-10/100 and ImageNet datasets with fewer trainable parameters. Our results suggest that better understanding of the properties of CNNs can lead to significant performance improvement with a simple modification.

Cite this Paper


BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v48-shang16, title = {Understanding and Improving Convolutional Neural Networks via Concatenated Rectified Linear Units}, author = {Shang, Wenling and Sohn, Kihyuk and Almeida, Diogo and Lee, Honglak}, booktitle = {Proceedings of The 33rd International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {2217--2225}, year = {2016}, editor = {Balcan, Maria Florina and Weinberger, Kilian Q.}, volume = {48}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, address = {New York, New York, USA}, month = {20--22 Jun}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.html}, abstract = {Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used as a powerful tool to solve many problems of machine learning and computer vision. In this paper, we aim to provide insight on the property of convolutional neural networks, as well as a generic method to improve the performance of many CNN architectures. Specifically, we first examine existing CNN models and observe an intriguing property that the filters in the lower layers form pairs (i.e., filters with opposite phase). Inspired by our observation, we propose a novel, simple yet effective activation scheme called concatenated ReLU (CReLU) and theoretically analyze its reconstruction property in CNNs. We integrate CReLU into several state-of-the-art CNN architectures and demonstrate improvement in their recognition performance on CIFAR-10/100 and ImageNet datasets with fewer trainable parameters. Our results suggest that better understanding of the properties of CNNs can lead to significant performance improvement with a simple modification.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Understanding and Improving Convolutional Neural Networks via Concatenated Rectified Linear Units %A Wenling Shang %A Kihyuk Sohn %A Diogo Almeida %A Honglak Lee %B Proceedings of The 33rd International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2016 %E Maria Florina Balcan %E Kilian Q. Weinberger %F pmlr-v48-shang16 %I PMLR %P 2217--2225 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.html %V 48 %X Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used as a powerful tool to solve many problems of machine learning and computer vision. In this paper, we aim to provide insight on the property of convolutional neural networks, as well as a generic method to improve the performance of many CNN architectures. Specifically, we first examine existing CNN models and observe an intriguing property that the filters in the lower layers form pairs (i.e., filters with opposite phase). Inspired by our observation, we propose a novel, simple yet effective activation scheme called concatenated ReLU (CReLU) and theoretically analyze its reconstruction property in CNNs. We integrate CReLU into several state-of-the-art CNN architectures and demonstrate improvement in their recognition performance on CIFAR-10/100 and ImageNet datasets with fewer trainable parameters. Our results suggest that better understanding of the properties of CNNs can lead to significant performance improvement with a simple modification.
RIS
TY - CPAPER TI - Understanding and Improving Convolutional Neural Networks via Concatenated Rectified Linear Units AU - Wenling Shang AU - Kihyuk Sohn AU - Diogo Almeida AU - Honglak Lee BT - Proceedings of The 33rd International Conference on Machine Learning DA - 2016/06/11 ED - Maria Florina Balcan ED - Kilian Q. Weinberger ID - pmlr-v48-shang16 PB - PMLR DP - Proceedings of Machine Learning Research VL - 48 SP - 2217 EP - 2225 L1 - http://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.pdf UR - https://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.html AB - Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been used as a powerful tool to solve many problems of machine learning and computer vision. In this paper, we aim to provide insight on the property of convolutional neural networks, as well as a generic method to improve the performance of many CNN architectures. Specifically, we first examine existing CNN models and observe an intriguing property that the filters in the lower layers form pairs (i.e., filters with opposite phase). Inspired by our observation, we propose a novel, simple yet effective activation scheme called concatenated ReLU (CReLU) and theoretically analyze its reconstruction property in CNNs. We integrate CReLU into several state-of-the-art CNN architectures and demonstrate improvement in their recognition performance on CIFAR-10/100 and ImageNet datasets with fewer trainable parameters. Our results suggest that better understanding of the properties of CNNs can lead to significant performance improvement with a simple modification. ER -
APA
Shang, W., Sohn, K., Almeida, D. & Lee, H.. (2016). Understanding and Improving Convolutional Neural Networks via Concatenated Rectified Linear Units. Proceedings of The 33rd International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 48:2217-2225 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v48/shang16.html.

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