A.3. RELATION TO HINTON AND VAN CAMP

Hinton and van Camp [3] minimize the sum of two terms: the first is conventional error plus variance, the other is the distance $\int p(\alpha \mid D_{0}) \log \left( p(\alpha \mid D_{0})/ p(\alpha) \right) d \alpha$ between posterior $p(\alpha \mid D_{0})$ and prior $p(\alpha)$. The problem is to choose a ``good'' prior. In contrast to their approach, our approach does not require a ``good'' prior given in advance. Furthermore, Hinton and van Camp have to compute variances of weights and units, which (in general) cannot be done using linear approximation. Intuitively speaking, their weight variances are related to our $\Delta w_{ij}$. Our approach, however, does justify linear approximation.

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