Basic Structure

Basic components

Assembly is the most important basic class in SPAIC . spaic.Assembly contains three part: Network ,NeuronGroup and Node . spaic.Network is the basic class of the whole model. spaic.NeuronGroup contains neurons. spaic.Node is the basic class of the input and output nodes.

Front-end structure：

../_images/SPAIC_FRONTEND.jpg

Assembly

Assembly is an abstract class of neural network structure, representing any network structure, and other network modules are subclasses of the Assembly . Assembly has two properties named _groups and_connections that save the neurons and connections. As the main interface for network model, it contains the following main functions:

  • add_assembly(name, assembly) – Add new assembly members into the neuron assembly

  • del_assembly(assembly=None, name=None) – Delete exist members from the neuron assembly

  • copy_assembly(name, assembly) – copy an exist assembly and add it into this assemlby

  • replace_assembly(old_assembly, new_assembly) – replace an exist member with a new assembly

  • merge_assembly(assembly) – merge the given assembly into another assembly

  • select_assembly(assemblies, name=None) – choose part of the target assembly as a new assembly

  • add_connection(name, connection) – add a new connection into the assembly

  • del_connection(connection=None, name=None) – delete the target connection

  • assembly_hide() – hide this assembly

  • assembly_show() – show this assembly

NeuronGroup

spaic.NeuronGroup is the class with some neurons, usually, we call it a layer of neuron with same neuron model and connection ways. For more details, please look up Neuron

Node

spaic.Node is the transform node of model, it contains a lot of encoding and decoding methods. Encoder , Decoder , Generator , Action and Reward are all inherited from Node. For more details, please look up Encoder & Decoder

Network

spaic.Network is the most top structure in SPAIC , all modules like NeuronGroup or Connection should be contained in it. spaic.Network also controls the training, simulation and some data interaction process. spaic.Network supports some useful interface as follow:

  • run(run_time) – run the model, run_time is the time window

  • save_state – save the weight of model

  • state_from_dict – load weight of model

Projection

spaic.Projection is a high-level abstract class of topology, instead of Connection , Project represent the connections between Assembly s. Connection is subclass of Projection , when user build Projection between Assembly s, the construct function will build the corresponding connections according to the policies of Projection

Connection

spaic.Connection is used to build connections between NeuronGroup s, it also used to construct different synapses. For more details, please look up Connection

Backend

The core of backend that construct variables and generate computational graph. For more details, please look up Backend 。

More details