N: batch size
C: channel
H: height
W: width
so that "NCHW" means a data whose layout is (batch_size, channel, height, width)
and the lower case k represents a enum class, see:
https://github.com/dmlc/mshadow/blob/master/mshadow/base.h#L312
https://github.com/dmlc/mxnet/blob/master/include/mxnet/operator.h#L24