FEATURE SELECTION APPLIED TO THE TIME-FREQUENCY REPRESENTATION OF MUSCLE NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY (NIRS) SIGNALS: CHARACTERIZATION OF DIABETIC OXYGENATION PATTERNS

Diabetic patients might present peripheral microcirculation impairment and might benefit from physical training. Thirty-nine diabetic patients underwent the monitoring of the tibialis anterior muscle oxygenation during a series of voluntary ankle flexo-extensions by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS signals were acquired before and after training protocols. Sixteen control subjects were tested with the same protocol. Time-frequency distributions of the Cohen's class were used to process the NIRS signals relative to the concentration changes of oxygenated and reduced hemoglobin. A total of 24 variables were measured for each subject and the most discriminative were selected by using four feature selection algorithms: QuickReduct, Genetic Rough-Set Attribute Reduction, Ant Rough-Set Attribute Reduction, and traditional ANOVA. Artificial neural networks were used to validate the discriminative power of the selected features. Results showed that different algorithms extracted different sets of variables, but all the combinations were discriminative. The best classification accuracy was about 70%. The oxygenation variables were selected when comparing controls to diabetic patients or diabetic patients before and after training. This preliminary study showed the importance of feature selection techniques in NIRS assessment of diabetic peripheral vascular impairmen

Applying an evolutionary approach for learning path optimization in the next-generation e-learning systems

Learning analytics is targeted to better understand and optimize the process of learning and its environments through the measurement, collection and analysis of learners' data and contexts. To advise people's learning in a specific subject, most intelligent e-learning systems would require course instructors to explicitly input some prior knowledge about the subject such as all the pre-requisite requirements between course modules. Yet human experts may sometimes have conflicting views leading to less desirable learning outcomes. In a previous study, we proposed a complete system framework of learning analytics to perform an explicit semantic analysis on the course materials, followed by a heuristic-based concept clustering algorithm to group relevant concepts before finding their relationship measures, and lastly employing a simple yet efficient evolutionary approach to return the optimal learning sequence. In this paper, we carefully consider to enhance the original evolutionary optimizer with the hill-climbing heuristic, and also critically evaluate the impacts of various experts' recommended learning sequences possibly with conflicting views to optimize the learning paths for the next-generation e-learning systems. More importantly, the integration of heuristics can make our proposed framework more self-adaptive to less structured knowledge domains with conflicting views. To demonstrate the feasibility of our prototype, we implemented a prototype of the proposed e-learning system framework for learning analytics. Our empirical evaluation clearly revealed many possible advantages of our proposal with interesting directions for future investigation. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Emergent communication enhances foraging behaviour in evolved swarms controlled by Spiking Neural Networks

Social insects such as ants communicate via pheromones which allows them to coordinate their activity and solve complex tasks as a swarm, e.g. foraging for food. This behavior was shaped through evolutionary processes. In computational models, self-coordination in swarms has been implemented using probabilistic or simple action rules to shape the decision of each agent and the collective behavior. However, manual tuned decision rules may limit the behavior of the swarm. In this work we investigate the emergence of self-coordination and communication in evolved swarms without defining any explicit rule. We evolve a swarm of agents representing an ant colony. We use an evolutionary algorithm to optimize a spiking neural network (SNN) which serves as an artificial brain to control the behavior of each agent. The goal of the evolved colony is to find optimal ways to forage for food and return it to the nest in the shortest amount of time. In the evolutionary phase, the ants are able to learn to collaborate by depositing pheromone near food piles and near the nest to guide other ants. The pheromone usage is not manually encoded into the network; instead, this behavior is established through the optimization procedure. We observe that pheromone-based communication enables the ants to perform better in comparison to colonies where communication via pheromone did not emerge. We assess the foraging performance by comparing the SNN based model to a rule based system. Our results show that the SNN based model can efficiently complete the foraging task in a short amount of time. Our approach illustrates self coordination via pheromone emerges as a result of the network optimization. This work serves as a proof of concept for the possibility of creating complex applications utilizing SNNs as underlying architectures for multi-agent interactions where communication and self-coordination is desired.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figure

Survey on Path Planning of Mobile Robot with Multi Algorithms

Sensible practical environment for path and continuous motion preparation problems usually involves various operational areas coupled with indoor usage comprising of multiple apartments, corridors, a few doors and several static and active obstacles in between. The disintegration of this system into limited areas or regions indicates an effect on the fun preparation of appropriate pathways in a complex setting. Many algorithms are designed to solve problems with narrow passages and with optimal solution for more than one field. Independent mobile robot gadget would have felt the stability of its abilities, the steadfastness and the question of resilience with the project and the implementation of an innovative as well as an efficient plan with the best approach. Navigation algorithms reaching a certain sophistication in the field of autonomous mobile robot, which ensures that most work now focuses on more specialized activities such as efficient route planning and navigation across complex environments. Adaptive way to prepare and maneuver needs to establish learning thresholds, legislation to identify areas and to specify planned requirements of the library. The aim of this survey is studying many algorithms to view the advantage and disadvantage for each method then can use optimal method depended on this study

The Combination between the Individual Factors and the Collective Experience for Ultimate Optimization Learning Path using Ant Colony Algorithm

The approach that we propose in this paper is part of the optimization of the learning path in the e-learning environment. It relates more precisely to the adaptation and the guidance of the learners according to, on one hand, their needs and cognitive abilities and, on the other hand, the collective experience of co-learners. This work is done by an optimizer agent that has the specificity to provide to each learner the best path from the beginning of the learning process to its completion. The optimization in this approach is determined automatically and dynamically, by seeking the path that is more marked by success. This determination is concluding according to the vision of the pedagogical team and the collective experience of the learners. At the same time, we search of the path that is more adapted to the specificities of the learner in terms of preferences, level of knowledge and learner history. This operation is accomplished by exploiting their profile for perfect customization and the adaptation of ant colony algorithm for guidance tends towards maximizing the acquisition of the learner. The design of our work is unitary; it is based on the integration of individual collective factors of the learner. And the results are very conclusive. They show that the proposed approach is able to efficiently select the optimal path and that it participates fully in the satisfaction and success of the learner

Toward a complete e-learning system framework for semantic analysis, concept clustering and learning path optimization

Most online e-learning systems often demand the pre-requisite requirements between course modules and/or some relationship measures between involved concepts to be explicitly inputed by the course instructors so that an optimizer can be ultimately used to find an optimal learning sequence of involved concepts or modules for each individual learner after considering his/her past performance, learner's profile, learning style, etc. However, relying solely on the course instructor's input on the relationship among the involved concepts can be imprecise possibly due to the individual biases by human experts. Furthermore, the decision will become more complicated when various instructors hold conflicting views on the relationship among the involved concepts that may hinder any reasonable deduction. Therefore, we propose in this paper a complete system framework that can perform an explicit semantic analysis on the course materials, possibly aided by the relevant Wiki articles for any missing information about the involved concepts, to formulate the individual concepts, and followed by a heuristic-based concept clustering algorithm to group relevant concepts before finding their relationship measures. Lastly, an evolutionary optimizer will be used to return the optimal learning sequence after considering multiple experts' recommended learning sequences possibly containing conflicting views. To demonstrate the feasibility of our prototype, we implemented a prototype of the proposed e-learning system framework. Our empirical evaluation clearly revealed the possible advantages of our proposal with many possible directions for future investigation. © 2012 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Autonomous Cognitive Leveling Game Pada Serious Game Menggunakan Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract. Serious games containing the pedagogical aspects and as part of the device/media e-learning support the learning process. Besides, the learning method uses the game are better than the conventional learning, because learning materials that involve animation in the game will enable long-term memory of students. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) method offers a search procedure based on a population consisting of individuals called particles that change their position with respect to time. PSO, by way of initializing the position and velocity of a particle, calculates the fitness function of the solution and updates the position and velocity of a particle to a stop condition are found. The design of PSO on the problem of autonomous cognitive levels of the game on a serious game with a permutation is proposed by using the fitness function the distance between xi+1 (cognitive level game) with xi (cognitive pre-test). The expected outcome of this research is the sequence of levels completed in accordance with the needs of the learner.Keywords: Serious game, cognitive, pso Abstrak. Serious game sangat mendukung proses pembelajaran melalui permainan yang mengandung aspek pedagogis dan merupakan bagian dari alat/media e-learning. Selain itu metode pembelajaran menggunakan permainan lebih baik dibandingkan dengan pembelajaran konvensional, karena animasi materi pembelajaran dalam permainan akan mengaktifkan ingatan jangka panjang siswa.Metode particle swarm optimization (PSO) menawarkan suatu prose­dur pen­­ca­rian berdasar pada populasi yang terdiri atas individu-individu yang di­se­but par­­tikel, mengubah posisi mereka terhadap waktu. PSO dengan cara melakukan inisialisasi posisi dan kecepatan particle, menghitung fungsi fitness dari solusi dan mengupdate posisi dan kecepatan particle sampai kondisi berhenti ditemukan.Perancanagan PSO pada permasalahan autonomus cognitive level game pada serious game diusulkan menggunakan permutasi dengan fungsi fitness jarak antara xi+1(cognitive level game) dengan xi (cognitive pre-test).Hasil yang diharapkan dari penelitian ini adalah adanya urutan level game yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan pembelajar.Kata Kunci: Serious game, cognitive, pso

HEDCOS: High Efficiency Dynamic Combinatorial Optimization System using Ant Colony Optimization algorithm

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonDynamic combinatorial optimization is gaining popularity among industrial practitioners due to the ever-increasing scale of their optimization problems and efforts to solve them to remain competitive. Larger optimization problems are not only more computationally intense to optimize but also have more uncertainty within problem inputs. If some aspects of the problem are subject to dynamic change, it becomes a Dynamic Optimization Problem (DOP). In this thesis, a High Efficiency Dynamic Combinatorial Optimization System is built to solve challenging DOPs with high-quality solutions. The system is created using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) baseline algorithm with three novel developments. First, introduced an extension method for ACO algorithm called Dynamic Impact. Dynamic Impact is designed to improve convergence and solution quality by solving challenging optimization problems with a non-linear relationship between resource consumption and fitness. This proposed method is tested against the real-world Microchip Manufacturing Plant Production Floor Optimization (MMPPFO) problem and the theoretical benchmark Multidimensional Knapsack Problem (MKP). Second, a non-stochastic dataset generation method was introduced to solve the dynamic optimization research replicability problem. This method uses a static benchmark dataset as a starting point and source of entropy to generate a sequence of dynamic states. Then using this method, 1405 Dynamic Multidimensional Knapsack Problem (DMKP) benchmark datasets were generated and published using famous static MKP benchmark instances as the initial state. Third, introduced a nature-inspired discrete dynamic optimization strategy for ACO by modelling real-world ants’ symbiotic relationship with aphids. ACO with Aphids strategy is designed to solve discrete domain DOPs with event-triggered discrete dynamism. The strategy improved inter-state convergence by allowing better solution recovery after dynamic environment changes. Aphids mediate the information from previous dynamic optimization states to maximize initial results performance and minimize the impact on convergence speed. This strategy is tested for DMKP and against identical ACO implementations using Full-Restart and Pheromone-Sharing strategies, with all other variables isolated. Overall, Dynamic Impact and ACO with Aphids developments are compounding. Using Dynamic Impact on single objective optimization of MMPPFO, the fitness value was improved by 33.2% over the ACO algorithm without Dynamic Impact. MKP benchmark instances of low complexity have been solved to a 100% success rate even when a high degree of solution sparseness is observed, and large complexity instances have shown the average gap improved by 4.26 times. ACO with Aphids has also demonstrated superior performance over the Pheromone-Sharing strategy in every test on average gap reduced by 29.2% for a total compounded dynamic optimization performance improvement of 6.02 times. Also, ACO with Aphids has outperformed the Full-Restart strategy for large datasets groups, and the overall average gap is reduced by 52.5% for a total compounded dynamic optimization performance improvement of 8.99 times

Multi-objective optimization for time-based preventive maintenance within the transport network: a review

Preventive maintenance in transportation is essential not only to safeguard billions in business and infrastructure investment, but also to guarantee safety, reliability and efficacy within the network. Government, industry and society have been increasingly recognising the importance of keeping transport units condition well-preserved. The challenge, however, is to achieve optimal performance of the existing transport systems within acceptable costs, effective workforce use and minimum disruption. Those are generally conflicting objectives. Multi-objective optimisation approaches have served as powerful tools to assist stakeholders to properly deploy preventive maintenance in industry. In this study, we review the research conducted in the application of multi-objective optimisation for preventive maintenance in transport-related activities. We focus on time-based preventive maintenance for production, infrastructure, rail and energy providers. In our review, we are interested in aspects such as the types of problems addressed, the existing objectives, the approaches to solutions, and how the outcomes obtained support decision