The Netlab toolbox is designed to provide the central tools necessary for the simulation of theoretically well founded neural network algorithms and related models for use in teaching, research and applications development. It contains many techniques which are not yet available in standard neural network simulation packages.

The principles behind the toolbox are more important than simply compiling lists of algorithms. Data analysis and modelling methods should not be used in isolation; all parts of the toolbox interact in a coherent way, and implementations of standard pattern recognition techniques (such as linear regression and K-nearest-neighbour classifiers) are provided so that they can be used as benchmarks against which more complex algorithms can be evaluated. This interaction allows researchers to develop new techniques by building on and reusing existing software, thus reducing the effort required and increasing the robustness and usability of the new tools.

An accompanying text book, Netlab: Algorithms for Pattern Recognition written by Ian Nabney is published by Springer in their series Advances in Pattern Recognition: the ISBN number is 1-85233-440-1. More information can be found at http://www.ncrg.aston.ac.uk and http://www.mathworks.com/support/books/book4368.jsp.