\textbf{Motivation}: So far, when looking for $\hat{f}(x)$ the form was $\hat{f}(x)=w^\top x$, or $\hat{f}(x) = w^\top \phi(x)$. Note how the features $x, \phi(x)$ are predetermined. Why not learn them? \textbf{New Optimization Problem}: The new join-optimization problem, for $w$ and $\phi$:\\ \subtext{$\Theta$ is a set of parameters for $\phi$} $$ \hat{w} = \underset{w\in\R^m,\Theta\in\R^{m\times d}}{\text{arg min}}\Biggl( \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n l\Bigl( w^\top \phi(x_i;\Theta),y_i \Bigr) \Biggr) $$ Where $\phi(x,\Theta) = \Bigl( \phi_1(x;\theta_1),\ldots,\phi_m(x;\theta_m) \Bigr)$.\\ \subtext{$\theta_i$ is the $i$th row of $\Theta$, i.e. $\theta_i := (\Theta)_{i,:}$} More compact, in terms of $\Theta$, which combines $w, \phi$: $$ \Theta^* := \underset{\Theta}{\text{arg min}}\Bigl( L(\Theta; \mathcal{D}) \Bigr) = \underset{\Theta}{\text{arg min}} \Biggl( \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^{n} l\Bigl( \Theta;x_i,y_i \Bigr) \Biggr) $$ \subtext{$\Theta$ may also encapsulate $w,\phi$ for multiple layers, depending on definition} \subsection{Definitions} \definition \textbf{Activation Function}\\ We set $\phi_i(x;\theta_i) = \psi(\theta_i^\top x)$, $\psi$ is the activation function.\\ \subtext{$\theta_i \in \R^d,\quad\psi:\R\to\R$} {\scriptsize \notation More concisely, $\phi(x;\Theta) = \psi(\Theta x)$ } \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{ll} \textbf{Activation Function} & \textbf{Definition} \\ \hline Identity & $\psi(z) = z$ \\ Sigmoid & $\psi(z) = \frac{1}{1+e^{-z}}$ \\ Hyperbolic tangent & $\psi(z) = \tanh(z)$ \\ Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) & $\psi(z) = \max(0,z)$ \end{tabular} \end{center} \definition \textbf{Artificial Neural Network}\\ \subtext{The output functions of the above problem take the form:} $$ f(x;w,\theta) = \sum_{j=1}^{m}w_j\psi(\theta_j^\top x) $$ {\scriptsize \remark Also called Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) } \newpage \textbf{What is happening here?}\\ \smalltext{Explaining the calculation steps for such an $f$ naturally leads to the common pictorial depiction of neural networks.} \begin{align*} \text{(i)} &\quad x &=\quad& (x_1,\ldots,x_n) \in \R^d & \text{(Input Vector)} \\ \text{(ii)} &\quad z &=\quad& \Theta x & \text{(Linear transformation)} \\ \text{(iii)} &\quad h_i &=\quad& \psi(z_i) & \text{(Activation function)} \\ \text{(iv)} &\quad f(x) &=\quad& \sum_{j=1}^m w_j h_j & \text{(Output)} \end{align*} \definition \textbf{Hidden Layer} $h = \psi(z)$ \definition \textbf{Bias Term} $b \in \R^m$\\ \subtext{Needed, as $f$ might not pass through origin. Similar to using $F_\text{lin}$ in regression, these can also be added by augmenting the input \& hidden layers.} \textbf{Does this work at all?}\\ \smalltext{Yes, for most functions this does work.} \definition \textbf{Sigmoidal Function} $$ \sigma(t) \text{ s.t. } \begin{cases} \sigma: \R \to \R \\ \underset{t\to\infty}{\lim} = 1 \text{ and } \underset{t\to\infty}{\lim} \end{cases} $$ \theorem \textbf{Universal Approximation Theorem}\\ \smalltext{$\hat{f}$, that uniformly approximates $f$, exists and takes this form:} $$ \hat{f}(x) = \textbf{W}^{(2)}\psi\Bigl( \textbf{W}^{(1)}x + b \Bigr) $$ \smalltext{$f: [0,1]^d\to\R$ continuous$,\quad \psi $ sigmoidal}\\ \subtext{$\textbf{W}^{(1)} \in\R^{m\times d},\quad \textbf{W}^{(2)}\in\R^{1\times m},\quad m \in \N$} Note how $m$ could be very large.\\ \subtext{$m$ can intuitively be understood as the "width" of the ANN} \newpage \definition \textbf{Fully Connected Neural Network} More complex ANNs might have: \begin{enumerate} \item More hidden layers \item Multiple outputs \item Differen activation functions across layers \end{enumerate} These are called \textit{fully connected}, since every node in a layer is connected to every node in the adjacent layers.\\ \subtext{There are also more complex architectures.} \begin{center} \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{resources/FCANN.png}\\ \subtext{\textit{Introduction to Machine Learning (2026), p. 183}} \end{center} \notation Weights: $\textbf{W}^{(i)} := \Bigl[ w_{k,l}^{(i)} \Bigr]$, Biases: $b^{(i)}_k$\\ and $\Theta = \Bigl(\textbf{W}^{(1)},\ldots,\textbf{W}^{(L)}, b^{(1)},\ldots,b^{(L)}\Bigr)$ (All parameters)\\ \subtext{$w_{k,l}^{(i)}$: "Weight at layer $i$ to node $k$ from node $l$"} \newpage \subsection{Forward Propagation} How can we make predictions, i.e. how can $\hat{f}$ be evaluated? \definition \textbf{Forward Propagation}\\ \subtext{This is just the computation for $1$-layer ANN generalized for $L$ layers} \begin{algorithm} \caption{Forward Propagation} $h^{(0)}\gets x$\; \For{$l=1,\ldots,L$}{ $z^{(l)} = \textbf{W}^{(l)}h^{(l-1)} + b^{(l)}$ \\ $h^{(l)} = \psi(z^{(l)})$ } $f \gets \textbf{W}^{(L)}h^{(L-1)}+b^{(L)}$ \\ \Return f \end{algorithm} \subsection{Backwards Propagation} How can we get all gradients needed for model training? \definition \textbf{Backwards Propagation} \textbf{Intuition}: An efficient way to get the gradients is to reuse results from forward prop. and previous steps. This works best when starting at the back, at $\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L)}}l$. \textbf{Goal}: $\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(1)}}l,\ldots,\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L)}} l, \nabla_{b^{(1)}}l,\ldots,\nabla_{b^{(L)}}l$ \textbf{Step 1}: Calculate $\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L)}}l$, i.e. start from the back. \begin{align*} \nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L)}}l &= \frac{\partial l}{\partial \textbf{W}^{L}} \\ &= \frac{\partial l}{\partial f}\cdot\frac{\partial f}{\partial \textbf{W}^{(L)}} & \text{(Chain Rule)} \\ &= \frac{\partial l}{\partial f}\cdot\begin{bmatrix} \bigl( h^{(L-1)} \bigr)^\top \\ \vdots \\ \bigl( h^{(L-1)} \bigr)^\top \end{bmatrix} & (f = \textbf{W}^{(L)}h^{(L-1)} + b^{(L)}) \\ &= \nabla_f l \cdot\begin{bmatrix} \bigl( h^{(L-1)} \bigr)^\top \\ \vdots \\ \bigl( h^{(L-1)} \bigr)^\top \end{bmatrix} & \Biggl(\frac{\partial l}{\partial f} = \nabla_f l\Biggr) \end{align*} Notice how $h^{(L-1)}$ was computed during forward prop. \newpage \textbf{Step 2}: Calculate $\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L-1)}}l$. \begin{align*} \nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L-1)}}l &= \underbrace{\frac{\partial l}{\partial f}}_{\text{(1)}}\cdot\underbrace{\frac{\partial f}{\partial h^{(L-1)}}}_{\text{(2)}}\cdot\underbrace{\frac{\partial h^{(L-1)}}{\partial z^{(L-1)}}}_\text{(3)}\cdot\underbrace{\frac{z^{(L-1)}}{\partial \textbf{W}^{(L-1)}}}_\text{(4)} & \text{(Chain Rule)} \\ \end{align*} \begin{enumerate} \item Already done in Step 1. \item Already done in forward propagation, equal to $\textbf{W}^{(L)}$: $$ f \overset{\text{def}}{=} \textbf{W}^{(L)}h^{(L-1)}+b^{(L)} \implies \frac{\partial f}{\partial h^{(L-1)}} = \textbf{W}^{(L)} $$ \item \textbf{Not done.} Needs to be calculated: \begin{align*} \frac{\partial h^{(L-1)}}{\partial z^{(L-1)}} &= \frac{\partial \psi\bigl( z^{(L-1)} \bigr)}{\partial z^{(L-1)}} \\ &= \text{diag}\Bigl( \psi'\bigl( z^{(L-1)} \bigr) \Bigr) \\ &= \begin{bmatrix} \psi'\Bigl(z_1^{(L-1)}\Bigr) & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & \psi'\Bigl(z_2^{(L-1)}\Bigr) & \cdots & 0 \\ \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ 0 & 0 & \cdots & \psi\Bigl(z_n^{(L-1)}\Bigr) \\ \end{bmatrix} \end{align*} \item Already done in forward propagation, analogous to step 1. $$ \frac{\partial z^{(L-1)}}{\partial \textbf{W}^{(L-1)}} = \begin{bmatrix} \bigl( h^{(L-2)} \bigr)^\top \\ \vdots \\ \bigl( h^{(L-2)} \bigr)^\top \end{bmatrix} $$ \end{enumerate} \textbf{Step $i \leq L$}: Calculate $\nabla_{\textbf{W}^{(L-i)}}l$ Analogoues to step 2.\\ \subtext{The biases $\nabla_{b^{(l)}}l$ are analogous.} \newpage \subsection{Optimization} \textbf{Problem}: How can we train the model, i.e find $\Theta^*$? $$ \Theta^* := \underset{\Theta}{\text{arg min}}\Bigl( L(\Theta; \mathcal{D}) \Bigr) = \underset{\Theta}{\text{arg min}} \Biggl( \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^{n} l\Bigl( \Theta;x_i,y_i \Bigr) \Biggr) $$ {\footnotesize \remark $L(\Theta;\mathcal{D})$ is generally not convex.\\ {\color{gray} i.e. local minima, saddle points may exist } \remark $\dim(\Theta)$ is the total param. count of NN, may be very large } \textbf{Solution}: Gradient Descent (with optimizations) \begin{itemize} \item Stochastic Gradient Descent\\ \subtext{(Why? $\dim(\Theta)$ is very large, $\nabla_\Theta l(\Theta;x_i,y_i)$ are expensive)} \item Minibatch Gradient Descent\\ \subtext{(Why? $\mathcal{D}$ may be very large, so there are \textit{many} gradients)} \end{itemize} The standard GD update for $\Theta$ is: $$ \Theta^{t+1} = \Theta^t - \eta_t\cdot\nabla_\Theta L\Bigl( \Theta;\mathcal{D} \Bigr) $$ In Minibatch GD, this becomes:\\ \subtext{Where $\mathcal{S} \subset \{1,\ldots,n\}$} $$ \Theta^{t+1} = \Theta^t - \eta_t\cdot\nabla_\Theta L\Biggl( \frac{1}{|\mathcal{S}|}\sum_{i\in \mathcal{S}} l\Bigl( \Theta^t; x_i,y_i \Bigr) \Biggr) $$ {\footnotesize \remark An advantage: If $\Theta^t$ approaches a stationary point (which isn't the global minimu), GD will converge, but MB-GD may not converge. }