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Many real-life problems can be formulated as numerical optimization problems. Such problems pose a challenge for researchers when designing efficient techniques that are capable of finding the desired solution without suffering from premature convergence. This paper proposes a novel evolutionary algorithm that blends the exploitative and explorative merits of two main evolutionary algorithms, namely the Stochastic Fractal Search (SFS) and a Differential Evolution (DE) variant. This amalgam has an effective interaction and cooperation of an ensemble of diverse strategies to derive a single framework called Iterative Cyclic Tri-strategy with adaptive Differential Stochastic Fractal Evolutionary Algorithm (Ic3-aDSF-EA). The component algorithms cooperate and compete to enhance the quality of the generated solutions and complement each other. The iterative cycles in the proposed algorithm consist of three consecutive phases. The main idea behind the cyclic nature of Ic3-aDSF-EA is to gradually emphasize the work of the best-performing algorithm without ignoring the effects of the other inferior algorithm during the search process. The cooperation of component algorithms takes place at the end of each cycle for information sharing and the quality of solutions for the next cycle. The algorithm's performance is evaluated on 43 problems from three different benchmark suites. The paper also investigates the application to a set of real-life problems. The overall results show that the proposed Ic3-aDSF-EA has a propitious performance and a reliable scalability behavior compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A many objective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition and moth search is proposed. • Random and adaptive weights is used to break the limitation of uniform distribution weights. • Mutual evaluation value is used to evaluate the optimal individual in the neighborhood. • Improving scale factor α in MSA is to improve the performance of the proposed algorithm. Decomposition-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA/D) has good performance in solving multi-objective problems (MOPs) but poor performance in solving many-objective optimization problems (MaOPs). The weight vectors in MOEA/D are relatively fixed, which results in poor performance when dealing with complex MaOPs. In this paper, random and adaptive weights are introduced into MOEA/D to break the limitation of fixed weight vectors. And the moth search algorithm (MSA) is used as an operator to improve global search ability. The updating strategies in MSA are more consistent with the neighborhood learning strategy adopted in MOEA/D. In addition, to enable MSA to find the optimal solution in the neighborhood on the MaOPs to update other individuals. This paper introduces mutual evaluation value for evaluating the optimal individual in the neighborhood, and the proposed algorithm is abbreviated as MOEA/DMS. In comparative experiments on the MaF test suite, hypervolume (HV) and inverted generational distance (IGD) are used to measure MOEA/DMS and other many-objective evolutionary algorithms (MaOEAs). The results show that MOEA/DMS has an excellent performance in dealing with MaOPs. Besides, MOEA/DMS is compared with other state-of-the-art MaOEAs on two combinatorial MaOPs. The results show that MOEA/DMS also has significant advantages in dealing with combinatorial MaOPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The constrained clustering problem is studied. • An efficient local search algorithm is proposed. • A node filtering strategy is introduced for improving efficiency. • The proposed algorithm is more effective than state-of-the-art heuristics. Constrained clustering extends clustering by integrating user constraints, and aims to determine an optimal assignment under the constraints. In this paper, we propose a local search algorithm called FastCCP to solve the constrained clustering problem. In the algorithm, instances connected by must-link constraints are first merged into nodes, and then, a local search method is performed to handle the cannot-link constraints while minimizing the Within-Cluster Sum of Squares (WCSS). Several strategies are proposed to enhance the solution diversity and achieve a trade-off between constraint satisfaction and WCSS minimization during the search. Furthermore, a node-filtering strategy is proposed to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Experiments are performed on benchmark datasets to evaluate our algorithm. The comparative results indicate that our algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of both the solution quality and CPU runtime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inverted file (IVF) is one of the most efficient non-exhaustive search algorithms for approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search. In this paper, we propose a new three-step fast search algorithm in the framework of IVF named fast IVF (fIVF) to accelerate the ANN search. Different from the traditional IVF algorithm that conducts a full search at the coarse quantization stage, we introduce (1) cell-level rejection, (2) vector-level rejection, and (3) subspace-based pyramid model with multi-resolution to speed up this high time-consuming stage. Since our proposed fIVF concentrates on finding the exact w nearest coarse codewords at the coarse quantization stage and follows the same product quantization stage, it can achieve the same search accuracy as the traditional IVF. Experimental results on different datasets demonstrate that our proposed fIVF can significantly speed up the search process while keeping the same search accuracy as the traditional IVF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An improved gaining-sharing knowledge-based algorithm named MSGSK is proposed. • A parameter adjustment strategy is developed to adjust relative parameters of MSGSK. • A backtracking differential mutation strategy is designed to enrich the population diversity. • A strategy selection mechanism is presented to integrate the former two strategies. • MSGSK extracts more accurate parameters for five PV models. The determination of photovoltaic (PV) model parameters has essential theoretical and practical significance for the performance evaluation, power monitoring, and power generation efficiency calculation of PV systems. In this paper, a multi-strategy gaining-sharing knowledge-based algorithm (MSGSK) is developed to determine these parameters. In our previous work, it has been demonstrated that gaining-sharing knowledge-based algorithm (GSK) is well suited for solving the concerned problem. To enhance its performance, a parameter adjustment strategy is developed to adjust the knowledge rate and knowledge ratio of GSK. Besides, a backtracking differential mutation strategy by combining the mutation scheme of differential evolution and the updating scheme of backtracking search optimization algorithm is developed to enrich the population diversity. Furthermore, a strategy selection mechanism is introduced to integrate the former two strategies to balance exploration and exploitation in different stages of the evolutionary process. The suggested MSGSK algorithm is applied to five PV cases (SDM, DDM, Photowatt-PW201, STM6-40/36, and STP6-120/36). From the experimental data, it can be observed that MSGSK extracts the PV model parameters more precisely than the basic GSK. Furthermore, it exhibits faster convergence speed and higher accuracy compared to other advanced algorithms found in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new differential evolution (DE) algorithm is presented for solving global optimization problems by guiding the individuals adaptively to explore different decision regions and setting the control parameters properly for individuals. To consolidate algorithm efficiency and preserve population diversity, we first introduce a proration-based mutation strategy. This strategy dynamically selects promising individuals from population as guiders and proportionately allocates the individuals following them based on their fitness values and unsuccessful updates. Besides, we design a multi-segment mixed parameter setting to provide suitable parameters for individuals, considering feedback information from the population, individual requirements, and parameters' interaction. Additionally, we devise an adaptive population maintaining mechanism to refresh the population by replacing individuals with higher unsuccessful updates and removing those with poor fitness values. Unlike previous DE versions, our new algorithm dynamically and appropriately explores promising areas, refines parameter suitability, and accelerates convergence by updating and removing unpromising individuals. This enhances the algorithm search efficiency and achieves a good balance between exploration and exploitation. Finally, we evaluate the proposed algorithm's performance by comparing it with 17 typical or state-of-the-art algorithms on IEEE CEC2014 and CEC2017 test suites. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is a more promising optimizer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a population-based stochastic optimization algorithm, Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) has attracted numerous interests and has been applied in various applications. However, GSA has drawbacks such as uneven search and premature convergence in practical applications. This paper specifically explains the inherent characteristic of GSA in prioritizing the center position. Correspondingly, an improvement strategy of fitness normalization with mass shift is proposed, creating a situation where gravity and repulsion are mixed. Then, the global best mechanism with weights is incorporated into the particle's velocity update formula, which compensates for the difficulties in the later exploitation stage. Finally, an empirical formula for the initial gravitational constant related to the size of the solution space is proposed, which enhances the global search ability together with the former strategy. 12 shifted benchmark functions are used to construct 20 optimization problems ranging from 2 to 120 dimensions. The average performance of the proposed algorithm, other GSA and well-known algorithms are compared under the same budget. The results demonstrate that the proposed GSA not only effectively addresses the drawbacks of GSA and maintains good performance, but also exhibits strong competitiveness compared to various similar algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A combination of Deep Q-Learning algorithm and metaheuristic GSA is offered. • GSA initializes the weights and the biases of the neural networks. • A comparison with classical random, metaheuristic PSO and GWO is carried out. • The validation is done on real-time nonlinear servo system position control. • The drawbacks of randomly initialized neural networks are mitigated. This paper presents a novel Reinforcement Learning (RL)-based control approach that uses a combination of a Deep Q-Learning (DQL) algorithm and a metaheuristic Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA). The GSA is employed to initialize the weights and the biases of the Neural Network (NN) involved in DQL in order to avoid the instability, which is the main drawback of the traditional randomly initialized NNs. The quality of a particular set of weights and biases is measured at each iteration of the GSA-based initialization using a fitness function aiming to achieve the predefined optimal control or learning objective. The data generated during the RL process is used in training a NN-based controller that will be able to autonomously achieve the optimal reference tracking control objective. The proposed approach is compared with other similar techniques which use different algorithms in the initialization step, namely the traditional random algorithm, the Grey Wolf Optimizer algorithm, and the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm. The NN-based controllers based on each of these techniques are compared using performance indices specific to optimal control as settling time, rise time, peak time, overshoot, and minimum cost function value. Real-time experiments are conducted in order to validate and test the proposed new approach in the framework of the optimal reference tracking control of a nonlinear position servo system. The experimental results show the superiority of this approach versus the other three competing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Decoding is an important part of machine translation systems, and the most popular inference algorithm used here is beam search. Beam search algorithm improves translation by allowing a larger search space to be traversed than greedy search. However, as the beam width increases, the translation performance declines after a certain point in neural machine translation (NMT). This problem is usually not observed in statistical machine translation (SMT) due to the decoding method. This paper proposes a hybrid system-based method that uses SMT predictions to prevent quality deterioration in the beam search algorithm used in NMT decoding. Our approach is based on the reranking n-best list of NMT according to the SMT system translation sentence. We propose two different algorithms for reranking NMT n-best lists. The first algorithm uses the length information of the SMT outputs. In contrast, the second uses a word-based similarity approach with the Jaccard Index, the Dice's Coefficient, and the Overlap Coefficient. Experiments on three different language pairs show that the method we propose prevents the decrease in translation quality and produces a gain of 1.3 BLEU and 1.6 METEOR for different beam sizes and 1.8 BLEU and 2.1 METEOR average scores compared to the baseline results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, automated theorem proving (ATP) for first-order logic has made good progress, in which binary resolution inference rule plays a crucial role. However, as shown in the latest benchmark library of the ATP system, there are still many practical problems that have not been resolved or cannot be effectively resolved. Recently, in order to overcome the limitations of ATP based on binary resolution inference rules, a novel multi-clause dynamic standard contradiction separation (S-CS) inference rule and its automated deduction theory have been proposed. Based on this theory, this paper first clarifies the generality of this S-CS rule by comparing it with some well-known variants of the binary resolution rule, and then focuses on how to design a specific and effective algorithm along with search strategies to realize the S-CS based deductive theory with its implementation. Specifically, the present work proposes a novel S-CS dynamic deduction algorithm (in short SDDA) based on different strategies and summarizes its implementation procedures. In addition, we focus on evaluating whether SDDA, as a novel perspective multi-clause dynamic automatic deduction algorithm, can be applied on top of the current leading ATP system architectures to further improve their performances. Therefore, SDDA is applied to the current leading first-order ATP systems, i.e., Vampire and E, respectively forming two integrated APT systems, denoted as SDDA_V and SDDA_E. Then the capabilities of SDDA_V and SDDA_E are evaluated on the latest benchmark database TPTP, such as the CASC-J9 problems (FOF division) as well as the hard problems with a rating of 1 in the TPTP benchmark database. The experimental results show the effectiveness of SDDA: SDDA_V outperforms Vampire itself, and SDDA_E, outperforms E itself, and the two improved ATP systems have solved a number of hard problems with the rating of 1 in TPTP, that is, some problems in the latest benchmark database TPTP which have not yet been solved by other current first-order ATP systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely known that there is a lot of useful information hidden in big data, leading to a new saying that "data is money." Thus, it is prevalent for individuals to mine crucial information for utilization in many real-world applications. In the past, studies have considered frequency. Unfortunately, doing so neglects other aspects, such as utility, interest, or risk. Thus, it is sensible to discover high-utility itemsets (HUIs) in transaction databases while utilizing not only the quantity but also the predefined utility. To find patterns that can represent the supporting transaction, a recent study was conducted to mine high utility-occupancy patterns whose contribution to the utility of the entire transaction is greater than a certain value. Moreover, in realistic applications, patterns may not exist in transactions but be connected to an existence probability. In this paper, a novel algorithm, called H igh- U tility- O ccupancy P attern M ining in U ncertain databases (UHUOPM), is proposed. The patterns found by the algorithm are called P otential H igh U tility O ccupancy P atterns (PHUOPs). This algorithm divides user preferences into three factors, including support, probability, and utility occupancy. To reduce memory cost and time consumption and to prune the search space in the algorithm as mentioned above, probability-utility-occupancy list (PUO-list) and probability-frequency-utility table (PFU-table) are used, which assist in providing the downward closure property. Furthermore, an original tree structure, called support count tree (SC-tree), is constructed as the search space of the algorithm. Finally, substantial experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of proposed UHUOPM algorithm on both real-life and synthetic datasets, particularly in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pattern recognition tasks, selecting the appropriate features for a supervised classification problem is a critical task. One theoretical tool used for this purpose is the Test Theory, which identifies feature relevance and reduces the complexity of the training and classification processes. However, searching for irreducible subsets of features, called typical testors, that can differentiate objects belonging to different classes, is an exponential problem in terms of the number of features. To address this problem, various algorithms have been proposed in the literature that use different strategies to avoid unnecessary comparisons. In this paper, is proposed the RegularSearch algorithm to find all typical testors in a dataset associated with a supervised classification problem. The algorithm incrementally searches for candidate subsets of features that are most likely to be associated with a typical testor, reducing the number of comparisons as new features are added to the candidate subset. Our comparisons with the best-performing algorithms reported in the literature demonstrate that RegularSearch is more efficient for processing synthetic and real problem datasets in certain scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel CHT is proposed based on Pareto dominance-based ranking and CDP-based ranking. • A search algorithm based on four mutation operators is proposed. • A new constrained multiobjective differential evolution algorithm is proposed. The tradeoff between objective functions and constraints is a key issue that needs to be addressed by constrained multiobjective optimization algorithms, and constraint handling techniques (CHTs) are an important technique for balancing objective functions and constraints. In this paper, a novel CHT that fuses two rankings is proposed. Specifically, each individual is assigned two rankings: one ranking calculated based on Pareto dominance (regardless of constraints) and another calculated based on the constrained dominance principle (CDP). The fitness value of an individual is the weighted sum of these two rankings, and the weight is related to the generation number and the proportion of feasible solutions in the current generation. Based on the proposed CHT, a constrained multiobjective differential evolution algorithm is proposed. To generate high-quality offspring, the proposed constrained multiobjective differential evolution algorithm combines four mutation operations as core components of the search algorithm. The proposed algorithm is compared with eight state-of-the-art algorithms in experiments with five test suites, and the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm performs significantly better than the eight state-of-the-art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The service network design problem (SNDP) is a core problem in freight transportation. It involves the determination of the most cost-effective transportation network and the characteristics of the corresponding services, subject to various constraints. The scale of the problem in real-world applications is usually very large, especially when the network contains both the geographical information and the temporal constraints which are necessary for modelling multiple service-classes and dynamic events. The development of time-efficient algorithms for this problem is, therefore, crucial for successful real-world applications. Earlier research indicated that guided local search (GLS) was a promising solution method for this problem. One of the advantages of GLS is that it makes use of both the information collected during the search as well as any special structures which are present in solutions. Building upon earlier research, this paper carries out in-depth investigations into several mechanisms that could potentially speed up the GLS algorithm for the SNDP. Specifically, the mechanisms that we have looked at in this paper include a tabu list (as used by tabu search), short-term memory, and an aspiration criterion. An efficient hybrid algorithm for the SNDP is then proposed, based upon the results of these experiments. The algorithm combines a tabu list within a multi-start GLS approach, with an efficient feasibility-repairing heuristic. Experimental tests on a set of 24 well-known service network design benchmark instances have shown that the proposed algorithm is superior to a previously proposed tabu search method, reducing the computation time by over a third. In addition, we also show that far better results can be obtained when a faster linear program solver is adopted for the sub-problem solution. The contribution of this paper is an efficient algorithm, along with detailed analyses of effective mechanisms which can help to increase the speed of the GLS algorithm for the SNDP. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new bare-bones multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the environmental/economic dispatch problems. The algorithm has three distinctive features: a particle updating strategy which does not require tuning up control parameters; a mutation operator with action range varying over time to expand the search capability; and an approach based on particle diversity to update the global particle leaders. Several trials have been carried out on the IEEE 30-bus test system. By comparing with seven existing multi-objective optimization algorithms and three well-known multi-objective particle swarm optimization techniques, it is found that our algorithm is capable of generating excellent approximation of the true Pareto front and can be used to solve other types of multi-objective optimization problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Several types of evolutionary computing methods are documented in the literature and are well known for solving unconstrained optimisation problems. This paper proposes a hybrid scheme that combines the merits of a global search algorithm, the shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA) and local exploration, extremal optimisation (EO) and that exhibits strong robustness and fast convergence for high-dimensional continuous function optimisation. A modified shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (MSFLA) is investigated that improves the leaping rule by properly extending the leaping step size and adding a leaping inertia component to account for social behaviour. To further improve the local search ability of MSFLA and speed up convergence, we occasionally introduce EO, which has an excellent local exploration capability, in the local exploration process of the MSFLA. It is characterised by alternating the coarse-grained Cauchy mutation and the fine-grained Gaussian mutation. Compared with standard particle swarm optimisation (PSO), SFLA and MSFLA for six widely used benchmark examples, the hybrid MSFLA-EO is shown to be a good and robust choice for solving high-dimensional continuous function optimisation problems. It possesses excellent performance in terms of the mean function values, the success rate and the fitness function evaluations (FFE), which is a rough measure of the complexity of the algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a novel framework of the estimation of particle swarm distribution algorithms (EPSDAs). The aim is to effectively combine particle swarm optimization (PSO) with the estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) without losing their unique features. This aim is achieved by incorporating the following mechanisms: (1) selection is applied to the local best solutions in order to obtain more promising individuals for model building, (2) a probabilistic model of the problem is built from the selected solutions, and (3) new individuals are generated by a stochastic combination of the EDA’s model sampling method and the PSO’s particle moving mechanism. To exhibit the utility of the EPSDA framework, an extended compact particle swarm optimization (EcPSO) is developed by combining the strengths of the extended compact genetic algorithm (EcGA) with binary PSO (BPSO), along the lines of the suggested framework. Due to its effective nature of harmonizing the global search of EcGA with the local search of BPSO, EcPSO is able to discover the optimal solution in a fast and reliable manner. Experimental results on artificial to real-world problems have adduced grounds for the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Global optimization of high-dimensional problems in practical applications remains a major challenge to the research community of evolutionary computation. The weakness of randomization-based evolutionary algorithms in searching high-dimensional spaces is demonstrated in this paper. A new strategy, SP-UCI is developed to treat complexity caused by high dimensionalities. This strategy features a slope-based searching kernel and a scheme of maintaining the particle population’s capability of searching over the full search space. Examinations of this strategy on a suite of sophisticated composition benchmark functions demonstrate that SP-UCI surpasses two popular algorithms, particle swarm optimizer (PSO) and differential evolution (DE), on high-dimensional problems. Experimental results also corroborate the argument that, in high-dimensional optimization, only problems with well-formative fitness landscapes are solvable, and slope-based schemes are preferable to randomization-based ones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Efficient processing of distance-based queries (DBQs) is of great importance in spatial databases due to the wide area of applications that may address such queries. The most representative and known DBQs are the K Nearest Neighbors Query (KNNQ), ρ Distance Range Query (ρDRQ), K Closest Pairs Query (KCPQ) and ρ Distance Join Query (ρDJQ). In this paper, we propose new pruning mechanism to apply them in the design of new Recursive Best-First Search (RBFS) algorithms for DBQs between spatial objects indexed in R-trees. RBFS is a general search algorithm that runs in linear space and expands nodes in best-first order, but it can suffer from node re-expansion overhead (i.e. to expand nodes in best-first order, some nodes can be considered more than once). The R-tree and its variations are commonly cited spatial access methods that can be used for answering such spatial queries. Moreover, an exhaustive experimental study was also included using R-trees, which resulted to several conclusions about the efficiency of proposed RBFS algorithm and its comparison with respect to other search algorithms (Best-First Search (BFS) and Depth-First Branch-and-Bound (DFBnB)), in terms of disk accesses, response time and main memory requirements, taking into account several important parameters as maximum branching factor (Cmax), cardinality of the final query result (K), distance threshold (ρ) and size of a global LRU buffer (B). In general RBFS is competitive for KNNQ and KCPQ where the maximum branching factor (Cmax) is large enough (even better than DFBnB and very close to BFS), and it is a good alternative when we have main memory limitations in our computer due to high process overload in our system, since it is linear space consuming with respect to the height of the R-trees. Nevertheless, RBFS is the worst alternative for ρDRQ and ρDJQ. DFBnB is also a linear space algorithm and it obtains the same behavior as BFS for ρDRQ and ρDJQ; and it is the best when an LRU buffer was included. Finally, we have been able to check experimentally that BFS is the best for all DBQs, but it can consume many main memory resources to perform spatial queries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]