Submodular memetic approximation for multiobjective parallel test paper generation

Parallel test paper generation is a biobjective distributed resource optimization problem, which aims to generate multiple similarly optimal test papers automatically according to multiple user-specified assessment criteria. Generating high-quality parallel test papers is challenging due to its NP-hardness in both of the collective objective functions. In this paper, we propose a submodular memetic approximation algorithm for solving this problem. The proposed algorithm is an adaptive memetic algorithm (MA), which exploits the submodular property of the collective objective functions to design greedy-based approximation algorithms for enhancing steps of the multiobjective MA. Synergizing the intensification of submodular local search mechanism with the diversification of the population-based submodular crossover operator, our algorithm can jointly optimize the total quality maximization objective and the fairness quality maximization objective. Our MA can achieve provable near-optimal solutions in a huge search space of large datasets in efficient polynomial runtime. Performance results on various datasets have shown that our algorithm has drastically outperformed the current techniques in terms of paper quality and runtime efficiency

Hybridization of multi-objective deterministic particle swarm with derivative-free local searches

The paper presents a multi-objective derivative-free and deterministic global/local hybrid algorithm for the efficient and effective solution of simulation-based design optimization (SBDO) problems. The objective is to show how the hybridization of two multi-objective derivative-free global and local algorithms achieves better performance than the separate use of the two algorithms in solving specific SBDO problems for hull-form design. The proposed method belongs to the class of memetic algorithms, where the global exploration capability of multi-objective deterministic particle swarm optimization is enriched by exploiting the local search accuracy of a derivative-free multi-objective line-search method. To the authors best knowledge, studies are still limited on memetic, multi-objective, deterministic, derivative-free, and evolutionary algorithms for an effective and efficient solution of SBDO for hull-form design. The proposed formulation manages global and local searches based on the hypervolume metric. The hybridization scheme uses two parameters to control the local search activation and the number of function calls used by the local algorithm. The most promising values of these parameters were identified using forty analytical tests representative of the SBDO problem of interest. The resulting hybrid algorithm was finally applied to two SBDO problems for hull-form design. For both analytical tests and SBDO problems, the hybrid method achieves better performance than its global and local counterparts

Meta-heuristic algorithms in car engine design: a literature survey

Meta-heuristic algorithms are often inspired by natural phenomena, including the evolution of species in Darwinian natural selection theory, ant behaviors in biology, flock behaviors of some birds, and annealing in metallurgy. Due to their great potential in solving difficult optimization problems, meta-heuristic algorithms have found their way into automobile engine design. There are different optimization problems arising in different areas of car engine management including calibration, control system, fault diagnosis, and modeling. In this paper we review the state-of-the-art applications of different meta-heuristic algorithms in engine management systems. The review covers a wide range of research, including the application of meta-heuristic algorithms in engine calibration, optimizing engine control systems, engine fault diagnosis, and optimizing different parts of engines and modeling. The meta-heuristic algorithms reviewed in this paper include evolutionary algorithms, evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, genetic programming, differential evolution, estimation of distribution algorithm, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, memetic algorithms, and artificial immune system

Metaheuristic design of feedforward neural networks: a review of two decades of research

Over the past two decades, the feedforward neural network (FNN) optimization has been a key interest among the researchers and practitioners of multiple disciplines. The FNN optimization is often viewed from the various perspectives: the optimization of weights, network architecture, activation nodes, learning parameters, learning environment, etc. Researchers adopted such different viewpoints mainly to improve the FNN's generalization ability. The gradient-descent algorithm such as backpropagation has been widely applied to optimize the FNNs. Its success is evident from the FNN's application to numerous real-world problems. However, due to the limitations of the gradient-based optimization methods, the metaheuristic algorithms including the evolutionary algorithms, swarm intelligence, etc., are still being widely explored by the researchers aiming to obtain generalized FNN for a given problem. This article attempts to summarize a broad spectrum of FNN optimization methodologies including conventional and metaheuristic approaches. This article also tries to connect various research directions emerged out of the FNN optimization practices, such as evolving neural network (NN), cooperative coevolution NN, complex-valued NN, deep learning, extreme learning machine, quantum NN, etc. Additionally, it provides interesting research challenges for future research to cope-up with the present information processing era

A memetic algorithm with adaptive hill climbing strategy for dynamic optimization problems

Copyright @ Springer-Verlag 2008Dynamic optimization problems challenge traditional evolutionary algorithms seriously since they, once converged, cannot adapt quickly to environmental changes. This paper investigates the application of memetic algorithms, a class of hybrid evolutionary algorithms, for dynamic optimization problems. An adaptive hill climbing method is proposed as the local search technique in the framework of memetic algorithms, which combines the features of greedy crossover-based hill climbing and steepest mutation-based hill climbing. In order to address the convergence problem, two diversity maintaining methods, called adaptive dual mapping and triggered random immigrants, respectively, are also introduced into the proposed memetic algorithm for dynamic optimization problems. Based on a series of dynamic problems generated from several stationary benchmark problems, experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed memetic algorithm in comparison with some peer evolutionary algorithms. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed memetic algorithm in dynamic environments.This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant Nos. 70431003 and 70671020, the National Innovation Research Community Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60521003, and the National Support Plan of China under Grant No. 2006BAH02A09 and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of UK under Grant EP/E060722/01

A memetic particle swarm optimisation algorithm for dynamic multi-modal optimisation problems

Copyright @ 2011 Taylor & Francis.Many real-world optimisation problems are both dynamic and multi-modal, which require an optimisation algorithm not only to find as many optima under a specific environment as possible, but also to track their moving trajectory over dynamic environments. To address this requirement, this article investigates a memetic computing approach based on particle swarm optimisation for dynamic multi-modal optimisation problems (DMMOPs). Within the framework of the proposed algorithm, a new speciation method is employed to locate and track multiple peaks and an adaptive local search method is also hybridised to accelerate the exploitation of species generated by the speciation method. In addition, a memory-based re-initialisation scheme is introduced into the proposed algorithm in order to further enhance its performance in dynamic multi-modal environments. Based on the moving peaks benchmark problems, experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm in comparison with several state-of-the-art algorithms taken from the literature. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm for DMMOPs.This work was supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF) of China under Grant no. 70931001, the Funds for Creative Research Groups of China under Grant no. 71021061, the National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF) of China under Grant 71001018, Grant no. 61004121 and Grant no. 70801012 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities Grant no. N090404020, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of UK under Grant no. EP/E060722/01 and Grant EP/E060722/02, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University under Grant G-YH60

A particle swarm optimization based memetic algorithm for dynamic optimization problems

Copyright @ Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2010.Recently, there has been an increasing concern from the evolutionary computation community on dynamic optimization problems since many real-world optimization problems are dynamic. This paper investigates a particle swarm optimization (PSO) based memetic algorithm that hybridizes PSO with a local search technique for dynamic optimization problems. Within the framework of the proposed algorithm, a local version of PSO with a ring-shape topology structure is used as the global search operator and a fuzzy cognition local search method is proposed as the local search technique. In addition, a self-organized random immigrants scheme is extended into our proposed algorithm in order to further enhance its exploration capacity for new peaks in the search space. Experimental study over the moving peaks benchmark problem shows that the proposed PSO-based memetic algorithm is robust and adaptable in dynamic environments.This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 70431003 and Grant No. 70671020, the National Innovation Research Community Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60521003, the National Support Plan of China under Grant No. 2006BAH02A09 and the Ministry of Education, science, and Technology in Korea through the Second-Phase of Brain Korea 21 Project in 2009, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of UK under Grant EP/E060722/01 and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Grants under Grant G-YH60