Time series predictive analysis based on hybridization of meta-heuristic algorithms

This paper presents a comparative study which involved five hybrid meta-heuristic methods to predict the weather five days in advance. The identified meta-heuristic methods namely Moth-flame Optimization (MFO), Cuckoo Search algorithm (CSA), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Differential Evolution (DE) are individually hybridized with a well-known machine learning technique namely Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVM). For experimental purposes, a total of 6 independent inputs are considered which were collected based on daily weather data. The efficiency of the MFO-LSSVM, CSLSSVM, ABC-LSSVM, FA-LSSVM, and DE-LSSVM was quantitatively analyzed based on Theil’s U and Root Mean Square Percentage Error. Overall, the experimental results demonstrate a good rival among the identified methods. However, the superiority goes to FA-LSSVM which was able to record lower error rates in prediction. The proposed prediction model could benefit many parties in continuity planning daily activities

A hybrid swarm-based algorithm for single-objective optimization problems involving high-cost analyses

In many technical fields, single-objective optimization procedures in continuous domains involve expensive numerical simulations. In this context, an improvement of the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm, called the Artificial super-Bee enhanced Colony (AsBeC), is presented. AsBeC is designed to provide fast convergence speed, high solution accuracy and robust performance over a wide range of problems. It implements enhancements of the ABC structure and hybridizations with interpolation strategies. The latter are inspired by the quadratic trust region approach for local investigation and by an efficient global optimizer for separable problems. Each modification and their combined effects are studied with appropriate metrics on a numerical benchmark, which is also used for comparing AsBeC with some effective ABC variants and other derivative-free algorithms. In addition, the presented algorithm is validated on two recent benchmarks adopted for competitions in international conferences. Results show remarkable competitiveness and robustness for AsBeC.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, Springer Swarm Intelligenc

A Comparison of Nature Inspired Algorithms for Multi-threshold Image Segmentation

In the field of image analysis, segmentation is one of the most important preprocessing steps. One way to achieve segmentation is by mean of threshold selection, where each pixel that belongs to a determined class islabeled according to the selected threshold, giving as a result pixel groups that share visual characteristics in the image. Several methods have been proposed in order to solve threshold selectionproblems; in this work, it is used the method based on the mixture of Gaussian functions to approximate the 1D histogram of a gray level image and whose parameters are calculated using three nature inspired algorithms (Particle Swarm Optimization, Artificial Bee Colony Optimization and Differential Evolution). Each Gaussian function approximates thehistogram, representing a pixel class and therefore a threshold point. Experimental results are shown, comparing in quantitative and qualitative fashion as well as the main advantages and drawbacks of each algorithm, applied to multi-threshold problem.Comment: 16 pages, this is a draft of the final version of the article sent to the Journa

Chemical and biological reactions of solidification of peat using ordinary portland cement (OPC) and coal ashes

Construction over peat area have often posed a challenge to geotechnical engineers. After decades of study on peat stabilisation techniques, there are still no absolute formulation or guideline that have been established to handle this issue. Some researchers have proposed solidification of peat but a few researchers have also discovered that solidified peat seemed to decrease its strength after a certain period of time. Therefore, understanding the chemical and biological reaction behind the peat solidification is vital to understand the limitation of this treatment technique. In this study, all three types of peat; fabric, hemic and sapric were mixed using Mixing 1 and Mixing 2 formulation which consisted of ordinary Portland cement, fly ash and bottom ash at various ratio. The mixtures of peat-binder-filler were subjected to the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test, bacterial count test and chemical elemental analysis by using XRF, XRD, FTIR and EDS. Two pattern of strength over curing period were observed. Mixing 1 samples showed a steadily increase in strength over curing period until Day 56 while Mixing 2 showed a decrease in strength pattern at Day 28 and Day 56. Samples which increase in strength steadily have less bacterial count and enzymatic activity with increase quantity of crystallites. Samples with lower strength recorded increase in bacterial count and enzymatic activity with less crystallites. Analysis using XRD showed that pargasite (NaCa2[Mg4Al](Si6Al2)O22(OH)2) was formed in the higher strength samples while in the lower strength samples, pargasite was predicted to be converted into monosodium phosphate and Mg(OH)2 as bacterial consortium was re-activated. The Michaelis�Menten coefficient, Km of the bio-chemical reaction in solidified peat was calculated as 303.60. This showed that reaction which happened during solidification work was inefficient. The kinetics for crystallite formation with enzymatic effect is modelled as 135.42 (1/[S] + 0.44605) which means, when pargasite formed is lower, the amount of enzyme secretes is higher