Prime numbers and output codes

In this paper, the prime number encoding scheme is proposed for representing the supervisory class signals at the output layer of multilayered feedforward networks. The notion of prime number encoding stems from the idea that the module representations with respect to two appropriately chosen primes can uniquely represent any bounded integer value. In particular, the derived prime number encoding scheme is a viable replacement for the conventional 1-per-class coding scheme used for indexing tasks. Face recognition experiments performed using a 24-face database, and word-spotting experiments performed with the TIMIT speech database, suggest that the prime number encoding scheme is beneficial for indexing purposes, not only from the point of parameter reduction, but also in terms of recognition performance