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Despite their prevalence in neural networks we still lack a thorough theoretical characterization of ReLU layers. This paper aims to further our understanding of ReLU layers by studying how the activation function ReLU interacts with the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-13 Sören Dittmer , Emily J. King , Peter Maass

In this effort, we derive a formula for the integral representation of a shallow neural network with the ReLU activation function. We assume that the outer weighs admit a finite $L_1$-norm with respect to Lebesgue measure on the sphere. For…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-12 Armenak Petrosyan , Anton Dereventsov , Clayton Webster

Classical results in neural network approximation theory show how arbitrary continuous functions can be approximated by networks with a single hidden layer, under mild assumptions on the activation function. However, the classical theory…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-04-06 Tyler Lekang , Andrew Lamperski

In recent years, Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has increasingly captured the interest of researchers. Among the components in this domain, activation functions hold a fundamental and indispensable role. Our research focuses on the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-04-10 Wei Zi , Siyi Wang , Hyunji Kim , Xiaoming Sun , Anupam Chattopadhyay , Patrick Rebentrost

We investigate properties of neural networks that use both ReLU and $x^2$ as activation functions and build upon previous results to show that both analytic functions and functions in Sobolev spaces can be approximated by such networks of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-31 Vincent P. H. Goverse , Jad Hamdan , Jared Tanner

The activation function is at the heart of a deep neural networks nonlinearity; the choice of the function has great impact on the success of training. Currently, many practitioners prefer the Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) due to its…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-24 Jordan Inturrisi , Sui Yang Khoo , Abbas Kouzani , Riccardo Pagliarella

Activation functions are critical to the performance of deep neural networks, particularly in domains such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), where nonlinearity, low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and signal variability poses…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-16 Behtom Adeli , John McLinden , Pankaj Pandey , Ming Shao , Yalda Shahriari

We propose and analyze a new family of algorithms for training neural networks with ReLU activations. Our algorithms are based on the technique of alternating minimization: estimating the activation patterns of each ReLU for all given…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-10-12 Gauri Jagatap , Chinmay Hegde

Element-wise activation functions play a critical role in deep neural networks via affecting the expressivity power and the learning dynamics. Learning-based activation functions have recently gained increasing attention and success. We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-05 Dengsheng Chen , Jun Li , Kai Xu

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Simin Huo

The rectified linear unit (ReLU) is a highly successful activation function in neural networks as it allows networks to easily obtain sparse representations, which reduces overfitting in overparameterized networks. However, in network…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-14 Shiyu Liu , Rohan Ghosh , Dylan Tan , Mehul Motani

In this article we present new results on neural networks with linear threshold activation functions. We precisely characterize the class of functions that are representable by such neural networks and show that 2 hidden layers are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-20 Sammy Khalife , Hongyu Cheng , Amitabh Basu

Deep neural networks, particularly those employing Rectified Linear Units (ReLU), are often perceived as complex, high-dimensional, non-linear systems. This complexity poses a significant challenge to understanding their internal learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Longqing Ye

We prove a large deviation principle for deep neural networks with Gaussian weights and at most linearly growing activation functions, such as ReLU. This generalises earlier work, in which bounded and continuous activation functions were…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-02-10 Quirin Vogel

Activation functions play a pivotal role in determining the training dynamics and neural network performance. The widely adopted activation function ReLU despite being simple and effective has few disadvantages including the Dying ReLU…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-26 Sayan Nag , Mayukh Bhattacharyya

Deep neural networks, as a powerful system to represent high dimensional complex functions, play a key role in deep learning. Convergence of deep neural networks is a fundamental issue in building the mathematical foundation for deep…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Wentao Huang , Yuesheng Xu , Haizhang Zhang

This is paper for the smooth function approximation by neural networks (NN). Mathematical or physical functions can be replaced by NN models through regression. In this study, we get NNs that generate highly accurate and highly smooth…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2023-01-03 I. K. Hong

Fully connected deep neural networks are successfully applied to classification and function approximation problems. By minimizing the cost function, i.e., finding the proper weights and biases, models can be built for accurate predictions.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-25 Qingguang Guan

Most of convolutional neural networks share the same characteristic: each convolutional layer is followed by a nonlinear activation layer where Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) is the most widely used. In this paper, we argue that the designed…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2018-09-03 Gangming Zhao , Zhaoxiang Zhang , He Guan , Peng Tang , Jingdong Wang

This paper investigates the approximation properties of shallow neural networks with activation functions that are powers of exponential functions. It focuses on the dependence of the approximation rate on the dimension and the smoothness…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-22 Jian Lu , Xiaohuang Huang