{{Infobox software , name = Synapse , screenshot = synapse screen.jpg , screenshot size = 250px , caption = Design mode in Synapse , developer = Peltarion , operating_system = Microsoft Windows , genre =

Neural network software Neural network software is used to simulate, research, develop, and apply artificial neural networks, software concepts adapted from biological neural networks, and in some cases, a wider array of adaptive systems such as artificial intelligenc ...

, license =

EULA An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user, generally made available to the customer via a retailer acting as an intermediary. A EULA specifies in detail the rights and restr ...

, website
Synapse homepage
Synapse is a component-based

development environment In software deployment, an environment or tier is a computer system or set of systems in which a computer program or software component is deployed and executed. In simple cases, such as developing and immediately executing a program on the same m ...

for

neural network A neural network is a network or neural circuit, circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up ...

s and

adaptive system An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either conti ...

s. Created by '' Peltarion'', Synapse allows data mining,

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers propertie ...

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: * Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visualiz ...

, preprocessing,

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

and training of neural networks and adaptive systems and the

deployment Deployment may refer to: Engineering and software Concepts * Blue-green deployment, a method of installing changes to a web, app, or database server by swapping alternating production and staging servers * Continuous deployment, a software e ...

of them. It utilizes a

plug-in Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of softwar ...

based

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

making it a general platform for

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing '' signals'', such as sound, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniques are used to optimize transmissions, ...

. The first version of the product was released in May 2006.

Platform

Due to its plug in-based design, the usage of Synapse can be very general. Synapse is based on the

Microsoft .NET The Microsoft .NET strategy is a marketing plan that Microsoft followed in the early 2000s. Steve Ballmer described it as the company's "most ambitious undertaking since Internet Strategy Day in 1995". In support of this strategy, between 2000 and ...

framework and all Synapse components are also .NET components. Although Peltarion has yet to release an official

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

for the Synapse platform, user made components are emerging, some of them being original, demonstrating the openness of the platfor

Features

The development cycle in Synapse is based on the canonical data mining cycle. A notable difference however is that in Synapse that cycle is not

linear Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship ('' function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear ...

, but supports an

iterative Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...

approach where the user can freely move between the steps. Synapse features four different operating modes that make up the development cycle.

Preprocessing

The preprocessing mode is for data mining and data preparation. In this mode the user can import, visualize, explore and transform data in a variety of ways. Data is imported through the use of ''format'' components. The standard release includes format components for reading and writing data from CSV (text) files, SQL databases,

images An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...

and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

. The imported data can be visualized through visualizer components and filters can be applied to the data. The

filter Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

components range from simple data rearrangement to more advanced

FFT A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in th ...

and outlier removal filters. The visualizers include a variety of plots and grids, which can be interconnected and branched out to perform complex data mining tasks.

Design

In design mode components are linked to construct a

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...

. Linked components enable a signal flow creating a pipe filter machine. When a signal is set on a component, it filters the signal in some way and the filtered signal can then be piped to the next component in the linked chain of components that form the topology. The components can be either static or adaptive. Besides regular filters, they can be sources or sinks (like plots or data loggers). The standard distribution of synapse comes with a variety of components, ranging from simple neural network components such as weight layers and function layers, to whole neural networks such as

self-organizing map A self-organizing map (SOM) or self-organizing feature map (SOFM) is an unsupervised machine learning technique used to produce a low-dimensional (typically two-dimensional) representation of a higher dimensional data set while preserving the ...

s and more complex static elements like for instance the

fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and complet ...

component. The

control system A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial ...

is chosen and configured in design mode as well.

Training

The training mode is used for training (adapting) the system, or more generally to start the control system that regulates the information flow. It is visually similar to design mode and the same components are displayed. As the components have support for context sensitive displays, they can have a different visual appearance in training. In addition to running the control system, training mode allows the execution of high-level optimizers such as

genetic algorithms In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to gene ...

, particle swarm optimization and

simulated annealing Simulated annealing (SA) is a probabilistic technique for approximating the global optimum of a given function. Specifically, it is a metaheuristic to approximate global optimization in a large search space for an optimization problem. ...

. Remote execution and training is also possible in this mode.

Postprocessing

The postprocessing mode is for analyzing a trained system and the preparation of such a system for end use. System performance can be tested using statistical analysis, the sensitivity of the input-output relations of a system can be analyzed (

sensitivity analysis Sensitivity analysis is the study of how the uncertainty in the output of a mathematical model or system (numerical or otherwise) can be divided and allocated to different sources of uncertainty in its inputs. A related practice is uncertainty ana ...

) and reports can be generated. One of the most important postprocessing components is the deployment component.

Deployment

The deployment component allows the export of a system made in Synapse to a single .NET component. The system in the development environment is downscaled so that it only contains the minimal necessary requirements for execution and then compiled into an

assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

. This assembly can then be used in any .NET framework or

.NET Compact Framework The Microsoft .NET Compact Framework (.NET CF) is a version of the .NET Framework that is designed to run on resource constrained mobile/embedded devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, factory controllers, set-top box ...

application. The latter allows the deployment to

embedded devices An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

. ''Example code in C#'': DeployedNeuralNet net = new DeployedNeuralNet(); // Create nn object Matrix input = someSensor.GetData(); // Get data from some sensor net.Input_Sensor = input; // Set inputs to the nn net.Run(); // Run the nn control system someMotor.Power = net.Output_Port0; // Set the power of some motor to the output of the nn

External links

Peltarion
Neural network software