By hearing the term neural networks we intuitively create a snapshot of a brain in our minds, and indeed that's right, if we consider the brain to be a big and natural neural network. However, what about artificial neural networks (ANNs)? Well, here comes an opposite word to natural, and the first thing now that comes into our head is an image of an artificial brain or a robot, given the term artificial. In this case, we also deal with creating a structure similar to and inspired by the human brain; therefore, this can be called artificial intelligence.

Now the reader newly introduced to ANN may be thinking that this book teaches how to build intelligent systems, including an artificial brain, capable of emulating the human mind using Java codes, isn't it? The amazing answer is yes, but of course, we will not cover the creation of artificial thinking machines such as those from the Matrix trilogy movies; the reader will be provided a walkthrough on the process of designing artificial neural network solutions capable of abstracting knowledge in raw data, taking advantage of the entire Java programming language framework.