Related papers: SAU: Smooth activation function using convolution …

The choice of activation function in deep networks has a significant effect on the training dynamics and task performance. At present, the most effective and widely-used activation function is ReLU. However, because of the non-zero mean,…

We propose the Moderate Adaptive Linear Unit (MoLU), a novel activation function for deep neural networks, defined analytically as: f(x)=x \times (1+tanh(x))/2. MoLU combines mathematical elegance with empirical effectiveness, exhibiting…

Large Language Models (LLMs) with billions of parameters have drastically transformed AI applications. However, their demanding computation during inference has raised significant challenges for deployment on resource-constrained devices.…

In recent years novel activation functions have been proposed to improve the performance of neural networks, and they show superior performance compared to the ReLU counterpart. However, there are environments, where the availability of…

Sparse computation offers a compelling solution for the inference of Large Language Models (LLMs) in low-resource scenarios by dynamically skipping the computation of inactive neurons. While traditional approaches focus on ReLU-based LLMs,…

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…

We consider neural networks with rational activation functions. The choice of the nonlinear activation function in deep learning architectures is crucial and heavily impacts the performance of a neural network. We establish optimal bounds…

This paper proposes $\mathrm{dynActivation}$, a per-layer trainable activation defined as $f_i(x) = \mathrm{BaseAct}(x)(\alpha_i - \beta_i) + \beta_i x$, where $\alpha_i$ and $\beta_i$ are lightweight learned scalars that interpolate…

Recent studies have shown that the choice of activation function can significantly affect the performance of deep learning networks. However, the benefits of novel activation functions have been inconsistent and task dependent, and…

Activation in deep neural networks is fundamental to achieving non-linear mappings. Traditional studies mainly focus on finding fixed activations for a particular set of learning tasks or model architectures. The research on flexible…

Real-world analog systems intrinsically suffer from noise that can impede model convergence and accuracy on a variety of deep learning models. We demonstrate that differentiable activations like GELU and SiLU enable robust propagation of…

Activation functions play a significant role in the performance of deep learning algorithms. In particular, the Swish activation function tends to outperform ReLU on deeper models, including deep reinforcement learning models, across…

We propose \textbf{ULU}, a novel non-monotonic, piecewise activation function defined as $\{f(x;\alpha_1),x<0; f(x;\alpha_2),x>=0 \}$, where $f(x;\alpha)=0.5x(tanh(\alpha x)+1),\alpha >0$. ULU treats positive and negative inputs…

A wide variety of activation functions have been proposed for neural networks. The Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) is especially popular today. There are many practical reasons that motivate the use of the ReLU. This paper provides new…

In the era of Deep Neural Network based solutions for a variety of real-life tasks, having a compact and energy-efficient deployable model has become fairly important. Most of the existing deep architectures use Rectifier Linear Unit (ReLU)…

The widely used ReLU is favored for its hardware efficiency, {as the implementation at inference is a one bit sign case,} yet suffers from issues such as the ``dying ReLU'' problem, where during training, neurons fail to activate and…

Activation functions (AFs) play a pivotal role in the performance of neural networks. The Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) is currently the most commonly used AF. Several replacements to ReLU have been suggested but improvements have proven…

This paper establishes the (nearly) optimal approximation error characterization of deep rectified linear unit (ReLU) networks for smooth functions in terms of both width and depth simultaneously. To that end, we first prove that…

In contemporary large language models (LLMs), the swish-gated linear unit (SwiGLU) activation function is widely adopted to regulate the information flow and introduce non-linearity. For large positive inputs, SwiGLU approximates the…

The choice of activation function can have a large effect on the performance of a neural network. While there have been some attempts to hand-engineer novel activation functions, the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) remains the most…