Applications of Nature-Inspired Algorithms for Dimension Reduction: Enabling Efficient Data Analytics

In [1], we have explored the theoretical aspects of feature selection and evolutionary algorithms. In this chapter, we focus on optimization algorithms for enhancing data analytic process, i.e., we propose to explore applications of nature-inspired algorithms in data science. Feature selection optimization is a hybrid approach leveraging feature selection techniques and evolutionary algorithms process to optimize the selected features. Prior works solve this problem iteratively to converge to an optimal feature subset. Feature selection optimization is a non-specific domain approach. Data scientists mainly attempt to find an advanced way to analyze data n with high computational efficiency and low time complexity, leading to efficient data analytics. Thus, by increasing generated/measured/sensed data from various sources, analysis, manipulation and illustration of data grow exponentially. Due to the large scale data sets, Curse of dimensionality (CoD) is one of the NP-hard problems in data science. Hence, several efforts have been focused on leveraging evolutionary algorithms (EAs) to address the complex issues in large scale data analytics problems. Dimension reduction, together with EAs, lends itself to solve CoD and solve complex problems, in terms of time complexity, efficiently. In this chapter, we first provide a brief overview of previous studies that focused on solving CoD using feature extraction optimization process. We then discuss practical examples of research studies are successfully tackled some application domains, such as image processing, sentiment analysis, network traffics / anomalies analysis, credit score analysis and other benchmark functions/data sets analysis

MODIFIED MULTI-LEVEL STEGANOGRAPHY TO ENHANCE DATA SECURITY

Data-hiding using steganography algorithm becomes an important technique to prevent unauthorized users to have access to a secret data.  In this paper, steganography algorithm has been constructed to hide a secret data in a gray and a color images, this algorithm is named deep hiding/extraction algorithm (DHEA) to modify multi-level steganography (MLS). The suggested hiding algorithm is based on modified least significant bit (MDLSB) to scatter data in a cover-image and it utilizes a number of levels; where each level perform hiding data on a gray image except the last level that applies a color image to keep secret data. Furthermore, proper randomization approach with two layers is implemented; the first layer uses random pixels selection for hiding a secret data at each level, while the second layer implements at the last level to move randomly from segment to the others. In addition, the proposed hiding algorithm implements an effective lossless image compression using DEFLATE algorithm to make it possible to hide data into a next level. Dynamic encryption algorithm based on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is applied at each level by changing cipher keys (Ck) from level to the next, this approach has been applied to increase the security and working against attackers. Soft computing using a meta-heuristic approach based on artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has been introduced to achieve smoothing on pixels of stego-image, this approach is effective to reduce the noise caused by a hidden large amount of data and to increase a stego-image quality on the last level. The experimental result demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with bee colony DHA-ABC to show high-performing to hide a large amount of data up to four bits per pixel (bpp) with high security in terms of hard extraction of a secret message and noise reduction of the stego-image. Moreover, using deep hiding with unlimited levels is promising to confuse attackers and to compress a deep sequence of images into one image

Malware Detection using Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Malware detection has become a challenging task due to the increase in the number of malware families. Universal malware detection algorithms that can detect all the malware families are needed to make the whole process feasible. However, the more universal an algorithm is, the higher number of feature dimensions it needs to work with, and that inevitably causes the emerging problem of Curse of Dimensionality (CoD). Besides, it is also difficult to make this solution work due to the real-time behavior of malware analysis. In this paper, we address this problem and aim to propose a feature selection based malware detection algorithm using an evolutionary algorithm that is referred to as Artificial Bee Colony (ABC). The proposed algorithm enables researchers to decrease the feature dimension and as a result, boost the process of malware detection. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art

Optimization of medical image steganography using n-decomposition genetic algorithm

Protecting patients' confidential information is a critical concern in medical image steganography. The Least Significant Bits (LSB) technique has been widely used for secure communication. However, it is susceptible to imperceptibility and security risks due to the direct manipulation of pixels, and ASCII patterns present limitations. Consequently, sensitive medical information is subject to loss or alteration. Despite attempts to optimize LSB, these issues persist due to (1) the formulation of the optimization suffering from non-valid implicit constraints, causing inflexibility in reaching optimal embedding, (2) lacking convergence in the searching process, where the message length significantly affects the size of the solution space, and (3) issues of application customizability where different data require more flexibility in controlling the embedding process. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a technique known as an n-decomposition genetic algorithm. This algorithm uses a variable-length search to identify the best location to embed the secret message by incorporating constraints to avoid local minimum traps. The methodology consists of five main phases: (1) initial investigation, (2) formulating an embedding scheme, (3) constructing a decomposition scheme, (4) integrating the schemes' design into the proposed technique, and (5) evaluating the proposed technique's performance based on parameters using medical datasets from kaggle.com. The proposed technique showed resistance to statistical analysis evaluated using Reversible Statistical (RS) analysis and histogram. It also demonstrated its superiority in imperceptibility and security measured by MSE and PSNR to Chest and Retina datasets (0.0557, 0.0550) and (60.6696, 60.7287), respectively. Still, compared to the results obtained by the proposed technique, the benchmark outperforms the Brain dataset due to the homogeneous nature of the images and the extensive black background. This research has contributed to genetic-based decomposition in medical image steganography and provides a technique that offers improved security without compromising efficiency and convergence. However, further validation is required to determine its effectiveness in real-world applications

Binary Multi-Verse Optimization (BMVO) Approaches for Feature Selection

Multi-Verse Optimization (MVO) is one of the newest meta-heuristic optimization algorithms which imitates the theory of Multi-Verse in Physics and resembles the interaction among the various universes. In problem domains like feature selection, the solutions are often constrained to the binary values viz. 0 and 1. With regard to this, in this paper, binary versions of MVO algorithm have been proposed with two prime aims: firstly, to remove redundant and irrelevant features from the dataset and secondly, to achieve better classification accuracy. The proposed binary versions use the concept of transformation functions for the mapping of a continuous version of the MVO algorithm to its binary versions. For carrying out the experiments, 21 diverse datasets have been used to compare the Binary MVO (BMVO) with some binary versions of existing metaheuristic algorithms. It has been observed that the proposed BMVO approaches have outperformed in terms of a number of features selected and the accuracy of the classification process