# What should be desired output for ANN

The Back-Propagation Algorithm as described in this guide/introduction is confusing, the final formula generated for del(w)(change in weights) is

del(wji) - Change in weights of synapse from j to i;

eta (n) - learning factor;

Oj - Output of previous layer j;

dj - Desired output from previous layer j;

xi - Input

I have few doubts associated with the formula.

What is the desired output for hidden layer and Input layer??

What is the j and i notation?

What should be the learning factor how can I decide(or generate) the value of learning factor i.e eta(n)?

Note: I want it to work like this (there would be differences in some factors but formulations should be similar..I cannot see any similarity in the formulations).

### What is the desired output for hidden layer and input layer?

The hidden layers and input layers don't have a desired output.

Each neuron has an error, which for the output neurons is calculated as target activation - current activation.

Hidden neurons and output calculate their error as follows (psuedocode):

foreach(otherNeuron in myProjectedConnections):
myError += otherNeuron.error * connection.weight


myProjectedConnections is a list containing all the neurons to which a certain neuron passes on its activation value.

### What is the i and j notation?

Your question contains the answer: del(wji) - Change in weights of synapse from j to i;

A synapse is a fancy word for a connection. So j is a neuron and i is a neuron, with j projecting a connection to i.

### What should the learning factor be?

The learning factor should be a factor anywhere in the range of 0-1. If you set your learning factor to 1, a network will learn the output to one test case immediately. If you want to teach it patterns however, choose a value anywhere in the range of 0-0.3, depending on your situation ofcourse.

• Do you know anything about Rprop(Resilient Back propagation), Rprop uses (changes) learning factor to calculate new delw. What if I use Rprop instead of BackProp, which is better? Apr 29 '17 at 13:57