A novel pruning algorithm for self-organizing neural network

In this paper, a novel pruning algorithm is proposed for self-organizing the feed-forward neural network based on the sensitivity analysis, named novel pruning feed-forward neural network (NP-FNN). In this study, the number of hidden neurons is determined by the output´s sensitivity to the hidden nodes. This technique determines the relevance of the hidden nodes by analyzing the Fourier decomposition of the variance. Then each hidden node can obtain a contribution ratio. The connected weights of the hidden nodes with small ratio will be set as zeros. Therefore, the computational cost of the training process will be reduced significantly. It is clearly shown that the novel pruning algorithm minimizes the complexity of the final feed-forward neural network. Finally, computer simulation results are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.