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The reason behind CNNs capability to learn high-dimensional complex features from the images is the non-linearity introduced by the activation function. Several advanced activation functions have been discovered to improve the training…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-15 Jeevanshi Sharma

Neural architectures tend to fit their data with relatively simple functions. This "simplicity bias" is widely regarded as key to their success. This paper explores the limits of this principle. Building on recent findings that the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-14 Damien Teney , Liangze Jiang , Florin Gogianu , Ehsan Abbasnejad

Activation functions play a critical role in the performance and behaviour of neural networks, significantly impacting their ability to learn and generalise. Traditional activation functions, such as ReLU, sigmoid, and tanh, have been…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2025-03-27 Benjamin David Winter , William John Teahan

ReLU is widely seen as the default choice for activation functions in neural networks. However, there are cases where more complicated functions are required. In particular, recurrent neural networks (such as LSTMs) make extensive use of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-20 Nicholas Gerard Timmons , Andrew Rice

Deep learning is currently extensively employed across a range of research domains. The continuous advancements in deep learning techniques contribute to solving intricate challenges. Activation functions (AF) are fundamental components…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-03 Asmaa Benchama , Khalid Zebbara

We introduce SPLASH units, a class of learnable activation functions shown to simultaneously improve the accuracy of deep neural networks while also improving their robustness to adversarial attacks. SPLASH units have both a simple…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-17 Mohammadamin Tavakoli , Forest Agostinelli , Pierre Baldi

We extended the work of proposed activation function, Noisy Softplus, to fit into training of layered up spiking neural networks (SNNs). Thus, any ANN employing Noisy Softplus neurons, even of deep architecture, can be trained simply by the…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2017-06-13 Qian Liu , Yunhua Chen , Steve Furber

Activation function is a key component in deep learning that performs non-linear mappings between the inputs and outputs. Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) has been the most popular activation function across the deep learning community.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-01 Hock Hung Chieng , Noorhaniza Wahid , Pauline Ong

A CORDIC-based configuration for the design of Activation Functions (AF) was previously suggested to accelerate ASIC hardware design for resource-constrained systems by providing functional reconfigurability. Since its introduction, this…

Hardware Architecture · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Omkar Kokane , Gopal Raut , Salim Ullah , Mukul Lokhande , Adam Teman , Akash Kumar , Santosh Kumar Vishvakarma

Recent seminal work at the intersection of deep neural networks practice and random matrix theory has linked the convergence speed and robustness of these networks with the combination of random weight initialization and nonlinear…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-07 Pierre H. Richemond , Yike Guo

Activation functions introduce non-linearity into Neural Networks, enabling them to learn complex patterns. Different activation functions vary in speed and accuracy, ranging from faster but less accurate options like ReLU to slower but…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-19 Sudhakar Sah , Ravish Kumar , Darshan C. Ganji , Ehsan Saboori

Many neural network architectures rely on the choice of the activation function for each hidden layer. Given the activation function, the neural network is trained over the bias and the weight parameters. The bias catches the center of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-10-01 Farnoush Farhadi , Vahid Partovi Nia , Andrea Lodi

The widespread use of Multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) often relies on a fixed activation function (e.g., ReLU, Sigmoid, Tanh) for all nodes within the hidden layers. While effective in many scenarios, this uniformity may limit the networks…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-28 Hy Nguyen , Duy Khoa Pham , Srikanth Thudumu , Hung Du , Rajesh Vasa , Kon Mouzakis

Despite broad interest in applying deep learning techniques to scientific discovery, learning interpretable formulas that accurately describe scientific data is very challenging because of the vast landscape of possible functions and the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-17 Fuchang Gao , Boyu Zhang

Regarded as the third generation of neural networks, Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have garnered significant traction due to their biological plausibility and energy efficiency. Recent advancements in large models necessitate spiking…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2026-04-15 Chenlin Zhou , Sihang Guo , Jiaqi Wang , Dongyang Ma , Jin Cheng , Qingyan Meng , Zhengyu Ma , Yonghong Tian

This paper explores the expressive power of deep neural networks for a diverse range of activation functions. An activation function set $\mathscr{A}$ is defined to encompass the majority of commonly used activation functions, such as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-28 Shijun Zhang , Jianfeng Lu , Hongkai Zhao

Activation functions play critical roles in neural networks, yet current off-the-shelf neural networks pay little attention to the specific choice of activation functions used. Here we show that data-aware customization of activation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-18 Fuchang Gao , Boyu Zhang

A general procedure for introducing parametric, learned, nonlinearity into activation functions is found to enhance the accuracy of representative neural networks without requiring significant additional computational resources. Examples…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-14 David Yevick

Even in recent neural network architectures such as Transformers and Extended LSTM (xLSTM), and traditional ones like Convolutional Neural Networks, Activation Functions are an integral part of nearly all neural networks. They enable more…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-01 Matias Roodschild , Jorge Gotay-Sardiñas , Victor A. Jimenez , Adrian Will

Artificial neural networks usually consist of successive linear multiply-accumulate operations and nonlinear activation functions. However, most optical neural networks only achieve the linear operation in the optical domain, while the…

Optics · Physics 2023-11-03 Guanting Liu , Yiwei Shen , Ruiqian Li , Jingyi Yu , Xuming He , Cheng Wang