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Current neural networks are mostly built on the MP model, which usually formulates the neuron as executing an activation function on the real-valued weighted aggregation of signals received from other neurons. This letter proposes the flexible transmitter (FT) model, a novel bio-plausible neuron model with flexible synaptic plasticity. The FT model employs a pair of parameters to model the neurotransmitters between neurons and puts up a neuron-exclusive variable to record the regulated neurotrophin density. Thus, the FT model can be formulated as a two-variable, two-valued function, taking the commonly used MP neuron model as its particular case. This modeling manner makes the FT model biologically more realistic and capable of handling complicated data, even spatiotemporal data. To exhibit its power and potential, we present the flexible transmitter network (FTNet), which is built on the most common fully connected feedforward architecture taking the FT model as the basic building block. FTNet allows gradient calculation and can be implemented by an improved backpropagation algorithm in the complex-valued domain. Experiments on a broad range of tasks show that FTNet has power and potential in processing spatiotemporal data. This study provides an alternative basic building block in neural networks and exhibits the feasibility of developing artificial neural networks with neuronal plasticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many optimization tasks must be handled in noisy environments, where the exact evaluation of a solution cannot be obtained, only a noisy one. For optimization of noisy tasks, evolutionary algorithms (EAs), a type of stochastic metaheuristic search algorithm, have been widely and successfully applied. Previous work mainly focuses on the empirical study and design of EAs for optimization under noisy conditions, while the theoretical understandings are largely insufficient. In this study, we first investigate how noisy fitness can affect the running time of EAs. Two kinds of noise-helpful problems are identified, on which the EAs will run faster with the presence of noise, and thus the noise should not be handled. Second, on a representative noise-harmful problem in which the noise has a strong negative effect, we examine two commonly employed mechanisms dealing with noise in EAs: reevaluation and threshold selection. The analysis discloses that using these two strategies simultaneously is effective for the one-bit noise but ineffective for the asymmetric one-bit noise. Smooth threshold selection is then proposed, which can be proved to be an effective strategy to further improve the noise tolerance ability in the problem. We then complement the theoretical analysis by experiments on both synthetic problems as well as two combinatorial problems, the minimum spanning tree and the maximum matching. The experimental results agree with the theoretical findings and also show that the proposed smooth threshold selection can deal with the noise better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real-world optimization tasks, the objective (i.e., fitness) function evaluation is often disturbed by noise due to a wide range of uncertainties. Evolutionary algorithms are often employed in noisy optimization, where reducing the negative effect of noise is a crucial issue. Sampling is a popular strategy for dealing with noise: to estimate the fitness of a solution, it evaluates the fitness multiple ([Formula: see text]) times independently and then uses the sample average to approximate the true fitness. Obviously, sampling can make the fitness estimation closer to the true value, but also increases the estimation cost. Previous studies mainly focused on empirical analysis and design of efficient sampling strategies, while the impact of sampling is unclear from a theoretical viewpoint. In this article, we show that sampling can speed up noisy evolutionary optimization exponentially via rigorous running time analysis. For the (1[Formula: see text]1)-EA solving the OneMax and the LeadingOnes problems under prior (e.g., one-bit) or posterior (e.g., additive Gaussian) noise, we prove that, under a high noise level, the running time can be reduced from exponential to polynomial by sampling. The analysis also shows that a gap of one on the value of [Formula: see text] for sampling can lead to an exponential difference on the expected running time, cautioning for a careful selection of [Formula: see text]. We further prove by using two illustrative examples that sampling can be more effective for noise handling than parent populations and threshold selection, two strategies that have shown to be robust to noise. Finally, we also show that sampling can be ineffective when noise does not bring a negative impact.