A Survey on Evolutionary Computation for Computer Vision and Image Analysis: Past, Present, and Future Trends

Computer vision (CV) is a big and important field in artificial intelligence covering a wide range of applications. Image analysis is a major task in CV aiming to extract, analyse and understand the visual content of images. However, imagerelated tasks are very challenging due to many factors, e.g., high variations across images, high dimensionality, domain expertise requirement, and image distortions. Evolutionary computation (EC) approaches have been widely used for image analysis with significant achievement. However, there is no comprehensive survey of existing EC approaches to image analysis. To fill this gap, this paper provides a comprehensive survey covering all essential EC approaches to important image analysis tasks including edge detection, image segmentation, image feature analysis, image classification, object detection, and others. This survey aims to provide a better understanding of evolutionary computer vision (ECV) by discussing the contributions of different approaches and exploring how and why EC is used for CV and image analysis. The applications, challenges, issues, and trends associated to this research field are also discussed and summarised to provide further guidelines and opportunities for future research

Interval type-2 Atanassov-intuitionistic fuzzy logic for uncertainty modelling

This thesis investigates a new paradigm for uncertainty modelling by employing a new class of type-2 fuzzy logic system that utilises fuzzy sets with membership and non-membership functions that are intervals. Fuzzy logic systems, employing type-1 fuzzy sets, that mark a shift from computing with numbers towards computing with words have made remarkable impacts in the field of artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic systems of type-2, a generalisation of type-1 fuzzy logic systems that utilise type-2 fuzzy sets, have created tremendous advances in uncertainty modelling. The key feature of the type-2 fuzzy logic systems, with particular reference to interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems, is that the membership functions of interval type-2 fuzzy sets are themselves fuzzy. These give interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems an advantage over their type-1 counterparts which have precise membership functions. Whilst the interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems are effective in modelling uncertainty, they are not able to adequately handle an indeterminate/neutral characteristic of a set, because interval type-2 fuzzy sets are only specified by membership functions with an implicit assertion that the non-membership functions are complements of the membership functions (lower or upper). In a real life scenario, it is not necessarily the case that the non-membership function of a set is complementary to the membership function. There may be some degree of hesitation arising from ignorance or a complete lack of interest concerning a particular phenomenon. Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, another generalisation of the classical fuzzy set, captures this thought process by simultaneously defining a fuzzy set with membership and non-membership functions such that the sum of both membership and non-membership functions is less than or equal to 1. In this thesis, the advantages of both worlds (interval type-2 fuzzy set and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set) are explored and a new and enhanced class of interval type-2 fuzzy set namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, that enables hesitation, is introduced. The corresponding fuzzy logic system namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is rigorously and systematically formulated. In order to assess this thesis investigates a new paradigm for uncertainty modelling by employing a new class of type-2 fuzzy logic system that utilises fuzzy sets with membership and non-membership functions that are intervals. Fuzzy logic systems, employing type-1 fuzzy sets, that mark shift from computing with numbers towards computing with words have made remarkable impacts in the field of artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic systems of type-2, a generalisation of type-1 fuzzy logic systems that utilise type-2 fuzzy sets, have created tremendous advances in uncertainty modelling. The key feature of the type-2 fuzzy logic systems, with particular reference to interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems, is that the membership functions of interval type-2 fuzzy sets are themselves fuzzy. These give interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems an advantage over their type-1 counterparts which have precise membership functions. Whilst the interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems are effective in modelling uncertainty, they are not able to adequately handle an indeterminate/neutral characteristic of a set, because interval type-2 fuzzy sets are only specified by membership functions with an implicit assertion that the non-membership functions are complements of the membership functions (lower or upper). In a real life scenario, it is not necessarily the case that the non-membership function of a set is complementary to the membership function. There may be some degree of hesitation arising from ignorance or a complete lack of interest concerning a particular phenomenon. Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, another generalisation of the classical fuzzy set, captures this thought process by simultaneously defining a fuzzy set with membership and non-membership functions such that the sum of both membership and non-membership functions is less than or equal to 1. In this thesis, the advantages of both worlds (interval type-2 fuzzy set and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set) are explored and a new and enhanced class of interval type-2 fuzz set namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, that enables hesitation, is introduced. The corresponding fuzzy logic system namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is rigorously and systematically formulated. In order to assess the viability and efficacy of the developed framework, the possibilities of the optimisation of the parameters of this class of fuzzy systems are rigorously examined. First, the parameters of the developed model are optimised using one of the most popular fuzzy logic optimisation algorithms such as gradient descent (first-order derivative) algorithm and evaluated on publicly available benchmark datasets from diverse domains and characteristics. It is shown that the new interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is able to handle uncertainty well through the minimisation of the error of the system compared with other approaches on the same problem instances and performance criteria. Secondly, the parameters of the proposed framework are optimised using a decoupledextended Kalman filter (second-order derivative) algorithm in order to address the shortcomings of the first-order gradient descent method. It is shown statistically that the performance of this new framework with fuzzy membership and non-membership functions is significantly better than the classical interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems which have only the fuzzy membership functions, and its type-1 counterpart which are specified by single membership and non-membership functions. The model is also assessed using a hybrid learning of decoupled extended Kalman filter and gradient descent methods. The proposed framework with hybrid learning algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with existing approaches reported in the literature on the same problem instances and performance metrics. The simulation results have demonstrated the potential benefits of using the proposed framework in uncertainty modelling. In the overall, the fusion of these two concepts (interval type-2 fuzzy logic system and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system) provides a synergistic capability in dealing with imprecise and vague information

Collected Papers (on Neutrosophic Theory and Applications), Volume VI

This sixth volume of Collected Papers includes 74 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2015-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 121 co-authors from 19 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Abduallah Gamal, Amir Abdullah, Firoz Ahmad, Nadeem Ahmad, Ahmad Yusuf Adhami, Ahmed Aboelfetouh, Ahmed Mostafa Khalil, Shariful Alam, W. Alharbi, Ali Hassan, Mumtaz Ali, Amira S. Ashour, Asmaa Atef, Assia Bakali, Ayoub Bahnasse, A. A. Azzam, Willem K.M. Brauers, Bui Cong Cuong, Fausto Cavallaro, Ahmet Çevik, Robby I. Chandra, Kalaivani Chandran, Victor Chang, Chang Su Kim, Jyotir Moy Chatterjee, Victor Christianto, Chunxin Bo, Mihaela Colhon, Shyamal Dalapati, Arindam Dey, Dunqian Cao, Fahad Alsharari, Faruk Karaaslan, Aleksandra Fedajev, Daniela Gîfu, Hina Gulzar, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Hewayda El-Ghawalby, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, F. Nirmala Irudayam, Branislav Ivanov, S. Jafari, Jeong Gon Lee, Milena Jevtić, Sudan Jha, Junhui Kim, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Songül Karabatak, Abdullah Kargın, M. Karthika, Ieva Meidute-Kavaliauskiene, Madad Khan, Majid Khan, Manju Khari, Kifayat Ullah, K. Kishore, Kul Hur, Santanu Kumar Patro, Prem Kumar Singh, Raghvendra Kumar, Tapan Kumar Roy, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luu Quoc Dat, T. Madhumathi, Tahir Mahmood, Mladjan Maksimovic, Gunasekaran Manogaran, Nivetha Martin, M. Kasi Mayan, Mai Mohamed, Mohamed Talea, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Raja Muhammad Hashim, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Nada A. Nabeeh, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Xenia Negrea, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Jagan M. Obbineni, Angelo de Oliveira, M. Parimala, Gabrijela Popovic, Ishaani Priyadarshini, Yaser Saber, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, A. A. Salama, M. Saleh, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Dönüș Șengür, Shio Gai Quek, Songtao Shao, Dragiša Stanujkić, Surapati Pramanik, Swathi Sundari Sundaramoorthy, Mirela Teodorescu, Selçuk Topal, Muhammed Turhan, Alptekin Ulutaș, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Dan Valeriu Voinea, Volkan Duran, Navneet Yadav, Yanhui Guo, Naveed Yaqoob, Yongquan Zhou, Young Bae Jun, Xiaohong Zhang, Xiao Long Xin, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas

Interval type-2 Atanassov-intuitionistic fuzzy logic for uncertainty modelling

This thesis investigates a new paradigm for uncertainty modelling by employing a new class of type-2 fuzzy logic system that utilises fuzzy sets with membership and non-membership functions that are intervals. Fuzzy logic systems, employing type-1 fuzzy sets, that mark a shift from computing with numbers towards computing with words have made remarkable impacts in the field of artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic systems of type-2, a generalisation of type-1 fuzzy logic systems that utilise type-2 fuzzy sets, have created tremendous advances in uncertainty modelling. The key feature of the type-2 fuzzy logic systems, with particular reference to interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems, is that the membership functions of interval type-2 fuzzy sets are themselves fuzzy. These give interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems an advantage over their type-1 counterparts which have precise membership functions. Whilst the interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems are effective in modelling uncertainty, they are not able to adequately handle an indeterminate/neutral characteristic of a set, because interval type-2 fuzzy sets are only specified by membership functions with an implicit assertion that the non-membership functions are complements of the membership functions (lower or upper). In a real life scenario, it is not necessarily the case that the non-membership function of a set is complementary to the membership function. There may be some degree of hesitation arising from ignorance or a complete lack of interest concerning a particular phenomenon. Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, another generalisation of the classical fuzzy set, captures this thought process by simultaneously defining a fuzzy set with membership and non-membership functions such that the sum of both membership and non-membership functions is less than or equal to 1. In this thesis, the advantages of both worlds (interval type-2 fuzzy set and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set) are explored and a new and enhanced class of interval type-2 fuzzy set namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, that enables hesitation, is introduced. The corresponding fuzzy logic system namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is rigorously and systematically formulated. In order to assess this thesis investigates a new paradigm for uncertainty modelling by employing a new class of type-2 fuzzy logic system that utilises fuzzy sets with membership and non-membership functions that are intervals. Fuzzy logic systems, employing type-1 fuzzy sets, that mark shift from computing with numbers towards computing with words have made remarkable impacts in the field of artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic systems of type-2, a generalisation of type-1 fuzzy logic systems that utilise type-2 fuzzy sets, have created tremendous advances in uncertainty modelling. The key feature of the type-2 fuzzy logic systems, with particular reference to interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems, is that the membership functions of interval type-2 fuzzy sets are themselves fuzzy. These give interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems an advantage over their type-1 counterparts which have precise membership functions. Whilst the interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems are effective in modelling uncertainty, they are not able to adequately handle an indeterminate/neutral characteristic of a set, because interval type-2 fuzzy sets are only specified by membership functions with an implicit assertion that the non-membership functions are complements of the membership functions (lower or upper). In a real life scenario, it is not necessarily the case that the non-membership function of a set is complementary to the membership function. There may be some degree of hesitation arising from ignorance or a complete lack of interest concerning a particular phenomenon. Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, another generalisation of the classical fuzzy set, captures this thought process by simultaneously defining a fuzzy set with membership and non-membership functions such that the sum of both membership and non-membership functions is less than or equal to 1. In this thesis, the advantages of both worlds (interval type-2 fuzzy set and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set) are explored and a new and enhanced class of interval type-2 fuzz set namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy set, that enables hesitation, is introduced. The corresponding fuzzy logic system namely, interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is rigorously and systematically formulated. In order to assess the viability and efficacy of the developed framework, the possibilities of the optimisation of the parameters of this class of fuzzy systems are rigorously examined. First, the parameters of the developed model are optimised using one of the most popular fuzzy logic optimisation algorithms such as gradient descent (first-order derivative) algorithm and evaluated on publicly available benchmark datasets from diverse domains and characteristics. It is shown that the new interval type-2 Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system is able to handle uncertainty well through the minimisation of the error of the system compared with other approaches on the same problem instances and performance criteria. Secondly, the parameters of the proposed framework are optimised using a decoupledextended Kalman filter (second-order derivative) algorithm in order to address the shortcomings of the first-order gradient descent method. It is shown statistically that the performance of this new framework with fuzzy membership and non-membership functions is significantly better than the classical interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems which have only the fuzzy membership functions, and its type-1 counterpart which are specified by single membership and non-membership functions. The model is also assessed using a hybrid learning of decoupled extended Kalman filter and gradient descent methods. The proposed framework with hybrid learning algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with existing approaches reported in the literature on the same problem instances and performance metrics. The simulation results have demonstrated the potential benefits of using the proposed framework in uncertainty modelling. In the overall, the fusion of these two concepts (interval type-2 fuzzy logic system and Atanassov intuitionistic fuzzy logic system) provides a synergistic capability in dealing with imprecise and vague information

Optimization for Decision Making II

In the current context of the electronic governance of society, both administrations and citizens are demanding the greater participation of all the actors involved in the decision-making process relative to the governance of society. This book presents collective works published in the recent Special Issue (SI) entitled “Optimization for Decision Making II”. These works give an appropriate response to the new challenges raised, the decision-making process can be done by applying different methods and tools, as well as using different objectives. In real-life problems, the formulation of decision-making problems and the application of optimization techniques to support decisions are particularly complex and a wide range of optimization techniques and methodologies are used to minimize risks, improve quality in making decisions or, in general, to solve problems. In addition, a sensitivity or robustness analysis should be done to validate/analyze the influence of uncertainty regarding decision-making. This book brings together a collection of inter-/multi-disciplinary works applied to the optimization of decision making in a coherent manner

Advances in Optimization and Nonlinear Analysis

The present book focuses on that part of calculus of variations, optimization, nonlinear analysis and related applications which combines tools and methods from partial differential equations with geometrical techniques. More precisely, this work is devoted to nonlinear problems coming from different areas, with particular reference to those introducing new techniques capable of solving a wide range of problems. The book is a valuable guide for researchers, engineers and students in the field of mathematics, operations research, optimal control science, artificial intelligence, management science and economics

Soft computing applied to optimization, computer vision and medicine

Artificial intelligence has permeated almost every area of life in modern society, and its significance continues to grow. As a result, in recent years, Soft Computing has emerged as a powerful set of methodologies that propose innovative and robust solutions to a variety of complex problems. Soft Computing methods, because of their broad range of application, have the potential to significantly improve human living conditions. The motivation for the present research emerged from this background and possibility. This research aims to accomplish two main objectives: On the one hand, it endeavors to bridge the gap between Soft Computing techniques and their application to intricate problems. On the other hand, it explores the hypothetical benefits of Soft Computing methodologies as novel effective tools for such problems. This thesis synthesizes the results of extensive research on Soft Computing methods and their applications to optimization, Computer Vision, and medicine. This work is composed of several individual projects, which employ classical and new optimization algorithms. The manuscript presented here intends to provide an overview of the different aspects of Soft Computing methods in order to enable the reader to reach a global understanding of the field. Therefore, this document is assembled as a monograph that summarizes the outcomes of these projects across 12 chapters. The chapters are structured so that they can be read independently. The key focus of this work is the application and design of Soft Computing approaches for solving problems in the following: Block Matching, Pattern Detection, Thresholding, Corner Detection, Template Matching, Circle Detection, Color Segmentation, Leukocyte Detection, and Breast Thermogram Analysis. One of the outcomes presented in this thesis involves the development of two evolutionary approaches for global optimization. These were tested over complex benchmark datasets and showed promising results, thus opening the debate for future applications. Moreover, the applications for Computer Vision and medicine presented in this work have highlighted the utility of different Soft Computing methodologies in the solution of problems in such subjects. A milestone in this area is the translation of the Computer Vision and medical issues into optimization problems. Additionally, this work also strives to provide tools for combating public health issues by expanding the concepts to automated detection and diagnosis aid for pathologies such as Leukemia and breast cancer. The application of Soft Computing techniques in this field has attracted great interest worldwide due to the exponential growth of these diseases. Lastly, the use of Fuzzy Logic, Artificial Neural Networks, and Expert Systems in many everyday domestic appliances, such as washing machines, cookers, and refrigerators is now a reality. Many other industrial and commercial applications of Soft Computing have also been integrated into everyday use, and this is expected to increase within the next decade. Therefore, the research conducted here contributes an important piece for expanding these developments. The applications presented in this work are intended to serve as technological tools that can then be used in the development of new devices

Multi-Agent Systems

A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains

Approche robuste pour la segmentation et la classification d’images m´edicales

Image segmentation is a vital process in various fields, including robotics, object recognition, and medical imaging. In medical imaging, accurate segmentation of brain tissues from MRI images is crucial for diagnosing and treating brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. This thesis proposes an automatic fuzzy method for brain MRI segmentation. Firstly, the proposed method aims to improve the efficiency of the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm by reducing the need for manual intervention in cluster initialization and determining the number of clusters. For this purpose, we introduce an adaptive splitmerge technique that effectively divides the image into several homogeneous regions using a multi-threshold method based on entropy information. During the merge process, a new distance metric is introduced to combine the regions that are both highly similar within the merged region and effectively separated from others. The cluster centers and numbers obtained from the adaptive split-merge step serve as the initial parameters for the FCM algorithm. The obtained fuzzy partitions are evaluated using a novel proposed validity index. Secondly, we present a novel method to address the challenge of noisy pixels in the FCM algorithm by incorporating spatial information. Specifically, we assign a crucial role to the central pixel in the clustering process, provided it is not corrupted with noise. However, if it is corrupted with noise, its influence is reduced. Furthermore, we propose a novel quantitative metric for replacing the central pixel with one of its neighbors if it can improve the segmentation result in terms of compactness and separation. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a thorough comparison with existing clustering techniques is conducted, considering cluster validity functions, segmentation accuracy, and tissue segmentation accuracy. The evaluation comprises comprehensive qualitative and quantitative assessments, providing strong evidence of the superior performance of the proposed approach