CT#4 - Using Neural Networks to Classify People

Some have suggested that neural networks could be applied to people to indicate how likely they are to develop a disease or even become criminals. The idea is to design and “teach” a neural network-based DSS (Decision Support System) with a child’s personal characteristics, demographics, and genealogy, so that the neural network can recognize patterns in that data and suggest if that youngster is at risk for a specific disease or aberrant behavior. For this assignment, choose either susceptibility to disease or to criminal behavior. Explain thoroughly, in-depth what a neural network is and how it could work in the classification.

Include the following in your analysis:

1. What is a neural network?
2. How can we “teach” a neural network to recognize the specific patterns we’re interested in?
3. Select three personal characteristics of a child --demographic or hereditary-- that could influence in the future adult the chosen characteristic (disease or aberrant behavior.)
4. What DSS tool would you recommend/use to track those three characteristics you identified earlier?

Your submission must be a minimum of two pages, double-spaced and comply with CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements.