Improved Multi-Verse Optimizer Feature Selection Technique With Application To Phishing, Spam, and Denial Of Service Attacks

Intelligent classification systems proved their merits in different fields including cybersecurity. However, most cybercrime issues are characterized of being dynamic and not static classification problems where the set of discriminative features keep changing with time. This indeed requires revising the cybercrime classification system and pick a group of features that preserve or enhance its performance. Not only this but also the system compactness is regarded as an important factor to judge on the capability of any classification system where cybercrime classification systems are not an exception. The current research proposes an improved feature selection algorithm that is inspired from the well-known multi-verse optimizer (MVO) algorithm. Such an algorithm is then applied to 3 different cybercrime classification problems namely phishing websites, spam, and denial of service attacks. MVO is a population-based approach which stimulates a well-known theory in physics namely multi-verse theory. MVO uses the black and white holes principles for exploration, and wormholes principle for exploitation. A roulette selection schema is used for scientifically modeling the principles of white hole and black hole in exploration phase, which bias to the good solutions, in this case the solutions will be moved toward the best solution and probably to lose the diversity, other solutions may contain important information but didn’t get chance to be improved. Thus, this research will improve the exploration of the MVO by introducing the adaptive neighborhood search operations in updating the MVO solutions. The classification phase has been done using a classifier to evaluate the results and to validate the selected features. Empirical outcomes confirmed that the improved MVO (IMVO) algorithm is capable to enhance the search capability of MVO, and outperform other algorithm involved in comparison

Neighborhood search methods with Moth Optimization algorithm as a wrapper method for feature selection problems

Feature selection methods are used to select a subset of features from data, therefore only the useful information can be mined from the samples to get better accuracy and improves the computational efficiency of the learning model. Moth-flam Optimization (MFO) algorithm is a population-based approach, that simulates the behavior of real moth in nature, one drawback of the MFO algorithm is that the solutions move toward the best solution, and it easily can be stuck in local optima as we investigated in this paper, therefore, we proposed a MFO Algorithm combined with a neighborhood search method for feature selection problems, in order to avoid the MFO algorithm getting trapped in a local optima, and helps in avoiding the premature convergence, the neighborhood search method is applied after a predefined number of unimproved iterations (the number of tries fail to improve the current solution). As a result, the proposed algorithm shows good performance when compared with the original MFO algorithm and with state-of-the-art approaches

The adoption of bitcoins technology: The difference between perceived future expectation and intention to use bitcoins: Does social influence matter?

Bitcoin is a decentralized system that tries to become a solution to the shortcomings of fiat and gold-based currencies. Considering its newness, the adoption level of bitcoin is yet understood. Hence, several variables are proposed in this work in examining user perceptions regarding performance expectancy, effort expectancy, trust, adoption risk, decentralization and social influence interplay, with the context of user’s future expectation and behavioral intentions to use bitcoins. Data were gathered from 293 completed questionnaire and analised using AMOS 18. The outcomes prove the sound predictability of the proposed model regarding user’s future expectations and intentions toward bitcoins. All hypotheses were supported, they were significantly affecting the dependent variables. Social influence was found as the highest predictor of behavioral intention to negatively utilize bitcoins. The significant impact of social influence, adoption risk and effort expectancy which affect behavioral intention to use bitcoins the most, are demonstrated in this study. Bitcoins should thus, present an effective, feasible and personalized program which will assist efficient usage among users. Additionally, the impacts of social influence, adoption risk and perceived trust on behavioral intention to utilize new technology were compared, and their direct path was tested together, for the first time in this context

Hybrid feature selection method based on particle swarm optimization and adaptive local search method

Machine learning has been expansively examined with data classification as the most popularly researched subject. The accurateness of prediction is impacted by the data provided to the classification algorithm. Meanwhile, utilizing a large amount of data may incur costs especially in data collection and preprocessing. Studies on feature selection were mainly to establish techniques that can decrease the number of utilized features (attributes) in classification, also using data that generate accurate prediction is important. Hence, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is suggested in the current article for selecting the ideal set of features. PSO algorithm showed to be superior in different domains in exploring the search space and local search algorithms are good in exploiting the search regions. Thus, we propose the hybridized PSO algorithm with an adaptive local search technique which works based on the current PSO search state and used for accepting the candidate solution. Having this combination balances the local intensification as well as the global diversification of the searching process. Hence, the suggested algorithm surpasses the original PSO algorithm and other comparable approaches, in terms of performance

Cyberbullying detection framework for short and imbalanced Arabic datasets

Cyberbullying detection has attracted many researchers to detect negative comments deployed on communication platforms as cyberbullying can take many forms: verbal, implicit, explicit, or even nonverbal. The successful growth of social media in recent years has opened new perspectives on the detection of cyberbullying, although related research still encounters several challenges, such as data imbalance and expression implicitness. In this paper, we propose an automated cyberbullying detection framework designed to produce satisfactory results, especially when imbalanced short text and different dialects exist in the Arabic text data. In the proposed framework a new method to solve the imbalance problem is suggested, where the modified simulated annealing optimization algorithm is used to find the optimal set of samples from the majority class to balance the training set. This method has been evaluated using traditional machine learning algorithms including support vector machine, and deep learning algorithms including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Bidirectional LSTM (Bi-LSTM). To generate a framework that can detect Arabic written cyberbullying on communication platforms, the accuracy, recall, specificity, sensitivity and mean squared error are used as the main performance indicators. The results indicate that the proposed framework can improve the performance of the tested algorithms, and Bi-LSTM outperforms other methods for cyberbullying classification

Memory based cuckoo search algorithm for feature selection of gene expression dataset

Cancer prediction has been shown to be important in the cancer research area. This importance has prompted many researchers to review machine learning-approaches to predict cancer outcome using gene expression dataset. This dataset consists of many genes (features) which can mislead the prediction ability of the machine learning methods, as some features may lead to confusion or inaccurate classification. Since finding the most informative genes for cancer prediction is challenging, feature selection techniques are recommended to pick important and relevant features out of large and complex datasets. In this research, we propose the Cuckoo search method as a feature selection algorithm, guided by the memory-based mechanism to save the most informative features that are identified by the best solutions. The purpose of the memory is to keep track of the selected features at every iteration and find the features that enhance classification accuracy. The suggested algorithm has been contrasted with the original algorithm using microarray datasets and the proposed algorithm has been shown to produce good results as compared to original and contemporary algorithms

Comparison of specific segmentation methods used for copy move detection

In this digital age, the widespread use of digital images and the availability of image editors have made the credibility of images controversial. To confirm the credibility of digital images many image forgery detection types are arises, copy-move forgery is consisting of transforming any image by duplicating a part of the image, to add or hide existing objects. Several methods have been proposed in the literature to detect copy-move forgery, these methods use the key point-based and block-based to find the duplicated areas. However, the key point-based and block-based have a drawback of the ability to handle the smooth region. In addition, image segmentation plays a vital role in changing the representation of the image in a meaningful form for analysis. Hence, we execute a comparison study for segmentation based on two clustering algorithms (i.e., k-means and super pixel segmentation with density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN)), the paper compares methods in term of the accuracy of detecting the forgery regions of digital images. K-means shows better performance compared with DBSCAN and with other techniques in the literature

Digitalization of learning in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 outbreak: A survey

Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in China in late December 2019, more than 217 countries became almost immediately infected in the resulting pandemic. Consequently, many of them decided to close their educational institutions as a way of preventing the spread of this virus. For many of them, though, the closure made them unable to deliver learning materials to students owing to their inability to provide the right technology for the purpose. To assist with the digitalizing of learning during this time, this study reviews the most common technologies used in the delivery of learning materials, with the experience of most infected countries being considered. Major challenges in online learning are discussed in this study as well. Further, Saudi Arabia was considered as a case study for the effectiveness of distance learning during the 2020 spring semester, where 300 undergraduate students were surveyed on their opinions of distance learning. The responses to the survey indicated that distance learning was effective in providing the required knowledge to the students during the outbreak of COVID-19. The findings showed that although the lack of interaction and poor internet connections were factors affecting comfortable and successful learning of physics and mathematics, 63% of students were satisfied with learning management systems, 75% of students found it easy to understand course materials, and 67% of students found it easy to understand assignments and could deal with them comfortably. The study findings can encourage educational institutions to digitalize their learning materials in the future