Explore the vast range of titles available.

In the last decade, we observe an increasing number of nature-inspired optimization algorithms, with authors often claiming their novelty and their capabilities of acting as powerful optimization techniques. However, a considerable number of these algorithms do not seem to draw inspiration from nature or to incorporate successful tactics, laws, or practices existing in natural systems, while also some of them have never been applied in any optimization field, since their first appearance in literature. This paper presents some interesting findings that have emerged after the extensive study of most of the existing nature-inspired algorithms. The need for irrationally introducing new nature inspired intelligent (NII) algorithms in literature is also questioned and possible drawbacks of NII algorithms met in literature are discussed. In addition, guidelines for the development of new nature-inspired algorithms are proposed, in an attempt to limit the misleading appearance of variation of metaheuristics as nature inspired optimization algorithms.

This article presents a novel energy management strategy of multiple-stage evaporator (MSE). The maximum efficiency of MSE is achieved by optimum selection of unknown steady-state process parameters such as vapor temperatures and liquor flow rates. Various energy reduction schemes (ERSs) have been integrated to achieve a substantial enhancement in energy efficiency. For energy optimization, a set of nonlinear mathematical models for various ERSs are formulated and transformed to optimization problems. Three nature-inspired algorithms, namely GA, DE and PSO, are employed to compute these optimal process parameters and hence evaluate the energy efficiency. The simulated results accentuate that these algorithms efficiently converge approximately at the same values. The results reveal that the hybrid model with maximum efficiency of 8.24 is characterized as the most energy-efficient operating strategy. The amalgamation of flash tanks with the intention of reutilizing the waste steam further enhances the energy efficiency by 4.97%, thereby proving to be the most prominent operating strategy with the highest efficiency of 8.65.

Deep learning improves the realistic expression of virtual simulations specifically to solve multi-criteria decision-making problems, which are generally rely on high-performance artificial intelligence. This study was inspired by the motivation theory and natural life observations. Recently, motivation-based control has been actively studied for realistic expression, but it presents various problems. For instance, it is hard to define the relation among multiple motivations and to select goals based on multiple motivations. Behaviors should generally be practiced to take into account motivations and goals. This paper proposes a deep Q-network (DQN)-based multi-criteria decision-making framework for virtual agents in real time to automatically select goals based on motivations in virtual simulation environments and to plan relevant behaviors to achieve those goals. All motivations are classified according to the five-level Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and the virtual agents train a double DQN by big social data, select optimal goals depending on motivations, and perform behaviors relying on a predefined hierarchical task networks (HTNs). Compared to the state-of-the-art method, the proposed framework is efficient and reduced the average loss from 0.1239 to 0.0491 and increased accuracy from 63.24 to 80.15%. For behavioral performance using predefined HTNs, the number of methods has increased from 35 in the Q network to 1511 in the proposed framework, and the computation time of 10,000 behavior plans reduced from 0.118 to 0.1079 s.

Computer-aided diagnosis system is becoming a more and more important tool in clinical treatment, which can provide a verification of the doctors’ decisions. In this paper, we proposed a novel abnormal brain detection method for magnetic resonance image. Firstly, a pre-trained AlexNet was modified with batch normalization layers and trained on our brain images. Then, the last several layers were replaced with an extreme learning machine. A searching method was proposed to find the best number of layers to be replaced. Finally, the extreme learning machine was optimized by chaotic bat algorithm to obtain better classification performance. Experiment results based on 5 × hold-out validation revealed that our method achieved state-of-the-art performance.

Image segmentation is considered a crucial step required for image analysis and research. Many techniques have been proposed to resolve the existing problems and improve the quality of research, such as region-based, threshold-based, edge-based, and feature-based clustering in the literature. The researchers have moved toward using the threshold technique due to the ease of use for image segmentation. To find the optimal threshold value for a grayscale image, we improved and used a novel meta-heuristic equilibrium algorithm to resolve this scientific problem. Additionally, our improved algorithm has the ability to enhance the accuracy of the segmented image for research analysis with a significant threshold level. The performance of our algorithm is compared with seven other algorithms like whale optimization algorithm, bat algorithm, sine–cosine algorithm, salp swarm algorithm, Harris hawks algorithm, crow search algorithm, and particle swarm optimization. Based on a set of well-known test images taken from Berkeley Segmentation Dataset, the performance evaluation of our algorithm and well-known algorithms described above has been conducted and compared. According to the independent results and analysis of each algorithm, our algorithm can outperform all other algorithms in fitness values, peak signal-to-noise ratio metric, structured similarity index metric, maximum absolute error, and signal-to-noise ratio. However, our algorithm cannot outperform some algorithms in standard deviation values and central processing unit time with the large threshold levels observed.

Over previous decades, many nature-inspired optimization algorithms (NIOAs) have been proposed and applied due to their importance and significance. Some survey studies have also been made to investigate NIOAs and their variants and applications. However, these comparative studies mainly focus on one single NIOA, and there lacks a comprehensive comparative and contrastive study of the existing NIOAs. To fill this gap, we spent a great effort to conduct this comprehensive survey. In this survey, more than 120 meta-heuristic algorithms have been collected and, among them, the most popular and common 11 NIOAs are selected. Their accuracy, stability, efficiency and parameter sensitivity are evaluated based on the 30 black-box optimization benchmarking (BBOB) functions. Furthermore, we apply the Friedman test and Nemenyi test to analyze the performance of the compared NIOAs. In this survey, we provide a unified formal description of the 11 NIOAs in order to compare their similarities and differences in depth and a systematic summarization of the challenging problems and research directions for the whole NIOAs field. This comparative study attempts to provide a broader perspective and meaningful enlightenment to understand NIOAs.

Lung cancer is a deadly disease if not diagnosed in its early stages. However, early detection of lung cancer is a challenging task due to the shape and size of its nodules. Radiologists use automated tools for more precise opinion. Automated detection of the affected lung nodules is complicated because of the shape similarity among healthy and unhealthy tissues. Over the years, several expert systems have been developed that help radiologists to diagnose lung cancer effectively. In this article, we have proposed a framework to precisely detect lungs cancer to classify the benign and malignant nodules. The proposed framework is tested using the subset of the publicly available dataset, i.e., the Lung Image Database Consortium image collection (LIDC-IDRI). We applied filtering and noise removal in the pre-processing phase. Furthermore, the adaptive thresholding technique (OTSU) and the semantic segmentation are used to accurately detect the unhealthy lung nodules. Overall, 13 nodules features have extracted using principal components analysis algorithm. In addition, four optimal features are selected based on the classification performance. In the classification phase, 9 different classifiers are employed for the experimentation. Empirical analysis shows that the proposed system outperformed other techniques and provides 99.23% accuracy using a logit boost classifier.

Differential evolution (DE) is recognized as a simplistic yet robust evolutionary algorithm: it has been utilized to tackle different challenging optimization problems in various science and engineering disciplines. DE has some disadvantages, such as premature convergence and slow convergence rate, leading to the worst DE execution arrangement. Two DE variations named adaptive parameter selection-based DE (APSDE) and chaotic map hybridization based on DE and PSO (CMHDE-PSO) have been proposed to tackle the issues mentioned above. The proposed variants contain three unique advantages for APSDE: (1) new population initialization scheme to keep up the decent variety of the population diversity; (2) controlled mutation factor technique followed by adaptive decreasing parameter selection procedure; (3) novel mutation strategy with a specific weighted pattern to determine the mutant vector for the mutation operation. Similarly, for CMHDE-PSO (1) novel distribution called Torus for the selection of initial population located in the search space; (2) new parameter adoption technique based on chaotic circle maps defined by chaos theory; (3) average pattern means of two different mutation strategies; (4) and lastly the hybridization of proposed improved DE with PSO to supports DE escaping local minima. Both APSDE and CMHDE-PSO are compared with several standard non-DE old-fashioned optimization algorithms and various advanced DE variants. We accomplish definite experiments behind the powerful searching technique by applying the APSDE and CMHDE-PSO-based mutation and parameter selection strategy for the function optimization and weight optimization of feed-forward neural networks (FFNN) on real-world data classification problems. For data classification performance evaluation, 10 data sets are utilized from the repository of UCI machine learning. Experimental results showed that APSDE and CMHDE-PSO extensively beat different EAs in all test functions and obtained higher accuracy with the recent state-of-the-art algorithms for weight optimization.

Q-rung orthopair fuzzy (q-ROF) set is one of the powerful tools for handling the uncertain multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems, various MCDM methods under q-ROF environment have been developed in recent years. However, most existing studies merely concerned about the relationship between the criteria but they have not investigated the interactions between membership function and non-membership function. To explore the multiple heterogeneous relationships among membership functions and criteria, we propose a novel decision algorithm based on q-ROF set to deal with these using interactive operators and Maclaurin symmetric mean (MSM) operators. Specifically, the new interaction laws in the membership pairs of q-ROF sets are explained, and their properties are analyzed as the initial stage. Then, taking into account the influence of two or more factors on decision analysis, a q-ROF interaction Maclaurin symmetry mean (q-ROFIMSM) operator is formed based on the proposed interaction law to identify these factors’ interrelationship. Thirdly, based on the proposed operator with q-ROF information, a MCDM algorithm is developed and illustrated by numerical examples. An analysis of the feasibility, sensitivity, and superiority of the proposed framework is provided to validate our proposed method.

Unceasing population growth and urbanization have intensified the traditional systems to deal with citizen lifestyle, environment, economic issues and good governess. New communication technologies have played a vital role in changes traditional urbanization into a smarter and comfort zone for the citizen. Due to various systems and integration of several new standards and systems, the smart cities have suffered from various open challenges related to technologies, system controlling and management, scalability and security concerns. The new concepts of nature-inspired solutions have implemented to deal with smart cities’ challenges by more optimization and performance-oriented methods. Therefore, this paper aims to handle at least three areas of smart cities including smart mobility, smart living and security provision by developing three nature-inspired solutions. The three proposed solutions are dragon clustering mobility in IoV, moth flame electric management for smart living and ant colony-based intrusion detection system for security provision. These solutions are based on a dragonfly, moth flame and ant colony optimization techniques. The proposed solutions are evaluated in a simulation to check the performance. These solutions will help new researchers to explore the nature-inspired solutions to tackle the new and complex systems of smart cities.