Additional feature layers from ordered aggregations for deep neural networks

In the last years we have seen huge advancements in the area of Machine Learning, specially with the use of Deep Neural Networks. One of the most relevant examples is in image classification, where convolutional neural networks have shown to be a vital tool, hard to replace with any other techniques. Although aggregation functions, such as OWA operators, have been previously used on top of neural networks, usually to aggregate the outputs of different networks or systems (ensembles), in this paper we propose and explore a new way of using OWA aggregations in deep learning. We implement OWA aggregations as a new layer inside a convolutional neural network. These layers are used to learn additional order-based information from the feature maps of a certain layer, and then the newly generated information is used as a complement input for the following layers. We carry out several tests introducing the new layer in a VGG13-based reference network and show that this layer introduces new knowledge into the network without substantially increasing training times.