A two-layer perceptron for nearest neighbor classifier optimization

The performance of a nearest-neighbor classifier is degraded if only a small number of training samples are used as prototypes. An algorithm is presented for modifying the prototypes so that classification rate can be increased. This algorithm makes use of a two-layer perceptron with one second-order input. Each hidden node of the perceptron represents a prototype and the weights of connections between a hidden node and the input nodes are initially set equal to the feature values of the corresponding prototype. The weights are then changed using a gradient-based algorithm to generate a new prototype. The algorithm has been tested with good results