Abstract: A system and method for controlling a nodal network. The method includes estimating an effect on the objective caused by the existence or non-existence of a direct connection between a pair of nodes and changing a structure of the nodal network based at least in part on the estimate of the effect. A nodal network includes a strict partially ordered set, a weighted directed acyclic graph, an artificial neural network, and/or a layered feed-forward neural network.

Abstract: Computer systems and methods generate a stochastic categorical autoencoder learning network (SCAN). The SCAN is trained to have an encoder network that outputs, subject to one or more constraints, parameters for parametric probability distributions of sample random variables from input data. The parameters comprise measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion. The one or more constraints comprise a first constraint that constrains a measure of a magnitude of a vector of the measures of central tendency as compared to a measure of a magnitude of a vector of the measures of dispersion. Thereafter, the sample random variables are generated from the parameters and a decoder is trained to output the input data from the sample random variables.