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K-means clustering algorithm is a partitional clustering algorithm that has been used widely in many applications for traditional clustering due to its simplicity and low computational complexity. This clustering technique depends on the user specification of the number of clusters generated from the dataset, which affects the clustering results. Moreover, random initialization of cluster centers results in its local minimal convergence. Automatic clustering is a recent approach to clustering where the specification of cluster number is not required. In automatic clustering, natural clusters existing in datasets are identified without any background information of the data objects. Nature-inspired metaheuristic optimization algorithms have been deployed in recent times to overcome the challenges of the traditional clustering algorithm in handling automatic data clustering. Some nature-inspired metaheuristics algorithms have been hybridized with the traditional K-means algorithm to boost its performance and capability to handle automatic data clustering problems. This study aims to identify, retrieve, summarize, and analyze recently proposed studies related to the improvements of the K-means clustering algorithm with nature-inspired optimization techniques. A quest approach for article selection was adopted, which led to the identification and selection of 147 related studies from different reputable academic avenues and databases. More so, the analysis revealed that although the K-means algorithm has been well researched in the literature, its superiority over several well-established state-of-the-art clustering algorithms in terms of speed, accessibility, simplicity of use, and applicability to solve clustering problems with unlabeled and nonlinearly separable datasets has been clearly observed in the study. The current study also evaluated and discussed some of the well-known weaknesses of the K-means clustering algorithm, for which the existing improvement methods were conceptualized. It is noteworthy to mention that the current systematic review and analysis of existing literature on K-means enhancement approaches presents possible perspectives in the clustering analysis research domain and serves as a comprehensive source of information regarding the K-means algorithm and its variants for the research community.

Purpose: This systematic review aims to critically evaluate the literature on the Generalized Bin Packing Problem (GBPP) and related problems, with an emphasis on their practical applications in logistics, manufacturing, and transportation.Design/methodology/approach: We reviewed recent papers published over the last eight years, from 2016 to January 2024, and systematically classified them based on the methods, techniques, models, and frameworks they employed. The studies are related to Operations Research, Engineering, Business, Manufacturing, or closely associated fields.Findings: The primary goal of our Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is to identify thematic areas addressed by recent research on the GBPP and its associated challenges. Notably, only 1.7% of the reviewed articles incorporate sustainability considerations. Packaging is another underexplored area although mentioned in several studies, few focus on optimizing packaging dimensions to facilitate palletization and improve space utilization.Originality/value: This article presents a comprehensive review of the literature on the Generalized Bin Packing Problem (GBPP) and related problems. We analyzed the distribution of publications by keyword, country, author and the quality of the papers. Our findings highlight the generality of the GBPP, as it encompasses various types of packing, cutting, and knapsack problems. We provide an in depth categorization of the GBPP and related problems based on problem type, solution techniques, and optimization criteria.

As the world moves towards industrialization, optimization problems become more challenging to solve in a reasonable time. More than 500 new metaheuristic algorithms (MAs) have been developed to date, with over 350 of them appearing in the last decade. The literature has grown significantly in recent years and should be thoroughly reviewed. In this study, approximately 540 MAs are tracked, and statistical information is also provided. Due to the proliferation of MAs in recent years, the issue of substantial similarities between algorithms with different names has become widespread. This raises an essential question: can an optimization technique be called ‘novel’ if its search properties are modified or almost equal to existing methods? Many recent MAs are said to be based on ‘novel ideas’, so they are discussed. Furthermore, this study categorizes MAs based on the number of control parameters, which is a new taxonomy in the field. MAs have been extensively employed in various fields as powerful optimization tools, and some of their real-world applications are demonstrated. A few limitations and open challenges have been identified, which may lead to a new direction for MAs in the future. Although researchers have reported many excellent results in several research papers, review articles, and monographs during the last decade, many unexplored places are still waiting to be discovered. This study will assist newcomers in understanding some of the major domains of metaheuristics and their real-world applications. We anticipate this resource will also be useful to our research community.

Given its advantages in low latency, fast response, context-aware services, mobility, and privacy preservation, edge computing has emerged as the key support for intelligent applications and 5G/6G Internet of things (IoT) networks. This technology extends the cloud by providing intermediate services at the edge of the network and improving the quality of service for latency-sensitive applications. Many AI-based solutions with machine learning, deep learning, and swarm intelligence have exhibited the high potential to perform intelligent cognitive sensing, intelligent network management, big data analytics, and security enhancement for edge-based smart applications. Despite its many benefits, there are still concerns about the required capabilities of intelligent edge computing to deal with the computational complexity of machine learning techniques for big IoT data analytics. Resource constraints of edge computing, distributed computing, efficient orchestration, and synchronization of resources are all factors that require attention for quality of service improvement and cost-effective development of edge-based smart applications. In this context, this paper aims to explore the confluence of AI and edge in many application domains in order to leverage the potential of the existing research around these factors and identify new perspectives. The confluence of edge computing and AI improves the quality of user experience in emergency situations, such as in the Internet of vehicles, where critical inaccuracies or delays can lead to damage and accidents. These are the same factors that most studies have used to evaluate the success of an edge-based application. In this review, we first provide an in-depth analysis of the state of the art of AI in edge-based applications with a focus on eight application areas: smart agriculture, smart environment, smart grid, smart healthcare, smart industry, smart education, smart transportation, and security and privacy. Then, we present a qualitative comparison that emphasizes the main objective of the confluence, the roles and the use of artificial intelligence at the network edge, and the key enabling technologies for edge analytics. Then, open challenges, future research directions, and perspectives are identified and discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn.

Optimization techniques, particularly meta-heuristic algorithms, are highly effective in optimizing and enhancing efficiency across diverse models and systems, renowned for their ability to attain optimal or near-optimal solutions within a reasonable timeframe. In this work, the Puma Optimizer (PO) is proposed as a new optimization algorithm inspired from the intelligence and life of Pumas in. In this algorithm, unique and powerful mechanisms have been proposed in each phase of exploration and exploitation, which has increased the algorithm’s performance against all kinds of optimization problems. In addition, a new type of intelligent mechanism, which is a type of hyper-heuristic for phase change, is presented. Using this mechanism, the PO algorithm can perform a phase change operation during the optimization operation and balance both phases. Each phase is automatically adjusted to the nature of the problem. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, 23 standard functions and CEC2019 functions were used and compared with different types of optimization algorithms. Moreover, using the statistical test T-test and the execution time to solve the problem have been discussed. Finally, it has been tested using four machine learning and data mining problems, and the results obtained from all the analysis signifies the excellent performance of this algorithm against all kinds of problems compared to other optimizers. This algorithm has performed better than the compared algorithms in 27 benchmarks out of 33 benchmarks and has obtained better results in solving the clustering problem in 7 data sets out of 10 data sets. Furthermore, the results obtained in the problems of community detection and feature selection and MLP were superior. The source codes of the PO algorithm are publicly available at https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/157231-puma-optimizer-po .

In this study, a landslide susceptibility assessment is performed by combining two machine learning regression algorithms (MLRA), such as support vector regression (SVR) and categorical boosting (CatBoost), with two population-based optimization algorithms, such as grey wolf optimizer (GWO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), to evaluate the potential of a relatively new algorithm and the impact that optimization algorithms can have on the performance of regression models. The Kerala state in India has been chosen as the test site due to the large number of recorded incidents in the recent past. The study started with 18 potential predisposing factors, which were reduced to 14 after a multi-approach feature selection technique. Six susceptibility models were implemented and compared using the machine learning algorithms alone and combining each of them with the two optimization algorithms: SVR, CatBoost, SVR-PSO, CatBoost-PSO, SVR-GWO, and CatBoost-GWO. The resulting maps were validated with an independent dataset. The performance rankings, based on the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) metric, are as follows: CatBoost-GWO (AUC = 0.910) had the highest performance, followed by CatBoost-PSO (AUC = 0.909), CatBoost (AUC = 0.899), SVR-GWO (AUC = 0.868), SVR-PSO (AUC = 0.858), and SVR (AUC = 0.840). Other validation statistics corroborated these outcomes, and the Friedman and Wilcoxon-signed rank tests verified the statistical significance of the models. Our case study showed that CatBoost outperformed SVR both in case the models were optimized or not; the introduction of optimization algorithms significantly improves the results of machine learning models, with GWO being slightly more effective than PSO. However, optimization cannot drastically alter the results of the model, highlighting the importance of setting up of a rigorous susceptibility model since the early steps of any research.

This paper introduces a novel multi-stage FOPD(1 + PI) controller for DC motor speed control, optimized using the Pelican Optimization Algorithm (POA). Traditional PID controllers often fall short in handling the complex dynamics of DC motors, leading to suboptimal performance. Our proposed controller integrates fractional-order proportional-derivative (FOPD) and proportional-integral (PI) control actions, optimized via POA to achieve superior control performance. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is validated through rigorous simulations and experimental evaluations. Comparative analysis is conducted against conventional PID and fractional-order PID (FOPID) controllers, fine-tuned using metaheuristic algorithms such as atom search optimization (ASO), stochastic fractal search (SFS), grey wolf optimization (GWO), and sine-cosine algorithm (SCA). Quantitative results demonstrate that the FOPD(1 + PI) controller optimized by POA significantly enhances the dynamic response and stability of the DC motor. Key performance metrics show a reduction in rise time by 28%, settling time by 35%, and overshoot by 22%, while the steady-state error is minimized to 0.3%. The comparative analysis highlights the superior performance, faster response time, high accuracy, and robustness of the proposed controller in various operating conditions, consistently outperforming the PID and FOPID controllers optimized by other metaheuristic algorithms. In conclusion, the POA-optimized multi-stage FOPD(1 + PI) controller presents a significant advancement in DC motor speed control, offering a robust and efficient solution with substantial improvements in performance metrics. This innovative approach has the potential to enhance the efficiency and reliability of DC motor applications in industrial and automotive sectors.

Advancements in medical technology have created numerous large datasets including many features. Usually, all captured features are not necessary, and there are redundant and irrelevant features, which reduce the performance of algorithms. To tackle this challenge, many metaheuristic algorithms are used to select effective features. However, most of them are not effective and scalable enough to select effective features from large medical datasets as well as small ones. Therefore, in this paper, a binary moth-flame optimization (B-MFO) is proposed to select effective features from small and large medical datasets. Three categories of B-MFO were developed using S-shaped, V-shaped, and U-shaped transfer functions to convert the canonical MFO from continuous to binary. These categories of B-MFO were evaluated on seven medical datasets and the results were compared with four well-known binary metaheuristic optimization algorithms: BPSO, bGWO, BDA, and BSSA. In addition, the convergence behavior of the B-MFO and comparative algorithms were assessed, and the results were statistically analyzed using the Friedman test. The experimental results demonstrate a superior performance of B-MFO in solving the feature selection problem for different medical datasets compared to other comparative algorithms.

Deep learning (DL) has become an important machine learning approach that has been widely successful in many applications. Currently, DL is one of the best methods of extracting knowledge from large sets of raw data in a (nearly) self-organized manner. The technical design of DL depends on the feed-forward information flow principle of artificial neural networks with multiple layers of hidden neurons, which form deep neural networks (DNNs). DNNs have various architectures and parameters and are often developed for specific applications. However, the training process of DNNs can be prolonged based on the application and training set size (Gong et al. 2015). Moreover, finding the most accurate and efficient architecture of a deep learning system in a reasonable time is a potential difficulty associated with this approach. Swarm intelligence (SI) and evolutionary computing (EC) techniques represent simulation-driven non-convex optimization frameworks with few assumptions based on objective functions. These methods are flexible and have been proven effective in many applications; therefore, they can be used to improve DL by optimizing the applied learning models. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the most recent approaches involving the hybridization of SI and EC algorithms for DL, the architecture of DNNs, and DNN training to improve the classification accuracy. The paper reviews the significant roles of SI and EC in optimizing the hyper-parameters and architectures of a DL system in context to large scale data analytics. Finally, we identify some open problems for further research, as well as potential issues related to DL that require improvements, and an extensive bibliography of the pertinent research is presented.

This paper proposes a new method for encryption of RGB color images by combining two encryption approaches: the spatial approach and the transformation approach. The proposed method uses the 3D fractional modified Henon map (3D FrMHM) and the discrete fractional Krawtchouk moments (FrDKM). We have also proposed a new hybrid optimization algorithm (H-SSAOA) to optimize the parameters of the proposed Henon map and the parameters of the Krawtchouk fractional moments. This algorithm is based on the hybridization of two metaheuristic algorithms: the \"Salp Swarm Algorithm\" (SSA) and the \"Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm\" (AOA). The simulation results reveal the optimization efficiency of the proposed hybrid algorithm H-SSAOA compared to other meta-heuristic algorithms and the efficiency of the suggested encryption method for encrypting RGB color images in terms of sensitivity to the security key and resistance to different attacks.