An improved immune algorithm with parallel mutation and its application

The objective of this paper is to design a fast and efficient immune algorithm for solving various optimization problems. The immune algorithm (IA), which simulates the principle of the biological immune system, is one of the nature-inspired algorithms and its many advantages have been revealed. Although IA has shown its superiority over the traditional algorithms in many fields, it still suffers from the drawbacks of slow convergence and local minima trapping problems due to its inherent stochastic search property. Many efforts have been done to improve the search performance of immune algorithms, such as adaptive parameter setting and population diversity maintenance. In this paper, an improved immune algorithm (IIA) which utilizes a parallel mutation mechanism (PM) is proposed to solve the Lennard-Jones potential problem (LJPP). In IIA, three distinct mutation operators involving cauchy mutation (CM), gaussian mutation (GM) and lateral mutation (LM) are conditionally selected to be implemented. It is expected that IIA can effectively balance the exploration and exploitation of the search and thus speed up the convergence. To illustrate its validity, IIA is tested on a two-dimension function and some benchmark functions. Then IIA is applied to solve the LJPP to exhibit its applicability to the real-world problems. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of IIA in terms of the convergence speed and the solution quality

Effects of Exogenous Calcium on Datura Seed Germination under Drought Stress

With polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000), of 0% (CK), 5%, 10%, 15%, 25% used to simulate drought stress, and CaCl2 concentration 0 (CK), of 15, 20, 25 and 30mmol/L as ion gradient of exogenous calcium, the effects of drought, exogenous calcium and the interaction between the two on the Datura seed germination, so as to explore the optimal application amount of exogenous calcium to ease the suppression of drought stress on Datura seed germination. The results showed that the germination rate, germination potential and germination index of the Datura seeds were significantly lower than those of the control group. Under the normal moisture condition, exogenous calcium of moderate and low concentration had no significant effect on the Datura seed germination, while that of high concentration showed an inhibitory effect on the seed germination. Under drought stress, with the increasing concentration of exogenous calcium, the three indicators of Datura seeds showed a trend of increasing first and then decreasing. When the exogenous calcium had the concentration of 20 mmol/L, all the indicators of seed germination reached the maximum value, while showed a downward trend when exogenous calcium concentration was 25-30 mmol/L, and even increasingly sharp with drought intensifying. Therefore, in the production and utilization of Datura, 20 mmol/L of exogenous calcium can be used to soak seeds before sowing to improve the emergence rate under low and moderate drought conditions

The Effects of Temperature, Light and Moisture on the Seed Germination of Siphonostegia chinensis Benth.

To explore the optimum temperature, light intensityand water conditions for seed germination of Siphonostegia chinensis Benth.,seed germination experiment were carried out under different temperatures（5/15, 10/20, 15/25, 20/30℃）, different light intensity（14h light/10h darkness, complete darkness）and different concentrations（0％, 5％, 10％, 15％, 20％）of PEG-6000 solution. In terms of concentration, 5% PEG was regarded as the low level, 10% and 15% as the medium level, and 20% as the high level. The results showed that (1) Germination rate, germination potential, and germination index were increased with the rise of temperature. In addition, seed germination was significantly higher under the dark conditions than that with the 14h light/10h darkness. (2) No seed germination occurred when the temperature was below 10/20 ºC at 14h light/10h darkness. (3) Under 14h light/10h darkness, the germination rate, germination potential and germination index first increased and then decreased with the increase of PEG concentration. The low concentration was more beneficial to the seed germination. (4) Under the condition of complete darkness, the germination rate, germination potential and germination index decline with fluctuation with the increase of PEG concentration. Seed germination of Siphonostegia chinensis Benth. was inhibited in high concentration of PEG

Hydraulic Characteristics of Lateral Deflectors with Different Geometries in Gentle-Slope Free-Surface Tunnels

The gentle-slope tunnel has been adopted in many high dams, and aerators are usually required for high operating heads. For such tunnels, the lateral deflector is superior to the traditional bottom aerator, which loses its efficiency due to cavity blockage and fails to aerate the sidewalls. However, unfavorable flow patterns such as water-wings and shock waves are induced by the lateral deflectors. To address this problem, two novel lateral deflectors are proposed, and their hydraulic characteristics are comparatively investigated together with the triangular deflector by means of model test and numerical simulation. The triangular deflector was revealed to form a wide cavity that allows for the free rise up of the water-wings inside the cavity, leading to the development of a buddle-type shock wave, whereas the two-arc deflector yields a jet with a fluctuating surface, which induces water-wings and further develops into diamond-type shock waves. In contrast, the cavity formed behind the two-arc deflector with a straight downstream guiding line is stabler and shorter, thereby restricting the development of the rising flow and preventing the formation of water-wings and shock waves. Moreover, the two-arc deflector with a straight guiding line exhibits higher energy dissipation capacities and thus is recommended in practical engineering design

Hydraulic Characteristics of Lateral Deflectors with Different Geometries in Gentle-Slope Free-Surface Tunnels

The gentle-slope tunnel has been adopted in many high dams, and aerators are usually required for high operating heads. For such tunnels, the lateral deflector is superior to the traditional bottom aerator, which loses its efficiency due to cavity blockage and fails to aerate the sidewalls. However, unfavorable flow patterns such as water-wings and shock waves are induced by the lateral deflectors. To address this problem, two novel lateral deflectors are proposed, and their hydraulic characteristics are comparatively investigated together with the triangular deflector by means of model test and numerical simulation. The triangular deflector was revealed to form a wide cavity that allows for the free rise up of the water-wings inside the cavity, leading to the development of a buddle-type shock wave, whereas the two-arc deflector yields a jet with a fluctuating surface, which induces water-wings and further develops into diamond-type shock waves. In contrast, the cavity formed behind the two-arc deflector with a straight downstream guiding line is stabler and shorter, thereby restricting the development of the rising flow and preventing the formation of water-wings and shock waves. Moreover, the two-arc deflector with a straight guiding line exhibits higher energy dissipation capacities and thus is recommended in practical engineering design

Hybrid Binary Imperialist Competition Algorithm and Tabu Search Approach for Feature Selection Using Gene Expression Data

Gene expression data composed of thousands of genes play an important role in classification platforms and disease diagnosis. Hence, it is vital to select a small subset of salient features over a large number of gene expression data. Lately, many researchers devote themselves to feature selection using diverse computational intelligence methods. However, in the progress of selecting informative genes, many computational methods face difficulties in selecting small subsets for cancer classification due to the huge number of genes (high dimension) compared to the small number of samples, noisy genes, and irrelevant genes. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid algorithm HICATS incorporating imperialist competition algorithm (ICA) which performs global search and tabu search (TS) that conducts fine-tuned search. In order to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm HICATS, we have tested it on 10 well-known benchmark gene expression classification datasets with dimensions varying from 2308 to 12600. The performance of our proposed method proved to be superior to other related works including the conventional version of binary optimization algorithm in terms of classification accuracy and the number of selected genes

Hybrid Binary Imperialist Competition Algorithm and Tabu Search Approach for Feature Selection Using Gene Expression Data

Gene expression data composed of thousands of genes play an important role in classification platforms and disease diagnosis. Hence, it is vital to select a small subset of salient features over a large number of gene expression data. Lately, many researchers devote themselves to feature selection using diverse computational intelligence methods. However, in the progress of selecting informative genes, many computational methods face difficulties in selecting small subsets for cancer classification due to the huge number of genes (high dimension) compared to the small number of samples, noisy genes, and irrelevant genes. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid algorithm HICATS incorporating imperialist competition algorithm (ICA) which performs global search and tabu search (TS) that conducts fine-tuned search. In order to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm HICATS, we have tested it on 10 well-known benchmark gene expression classification datasets with dimensions varying from 2308 to 12600. The performance of our proposed method proved to be superior to other related works including the conventional version of binary optimization algorithm in terms of classification accuracy and the number of selected genes