A modified genetic algorithm for the flow shop sequencing problem to minimize mean flow time

A modified genetic algorithm (MGA) is developed for solving the flow shop sequencing problem with the objective of minimizing mean flow time. To improve the general genetic algorithm (GA) procedure, two additional operations are introduced into the algorithm. One replaces the worst solutions in each generation with the best solutions found in previous generations. The other improves the most promising solution, through local search, whenever the best solution has not been updated for a certain number of generations. Computational experiments on randomly generated problems are carried out to compare the MGA with the general GA and special-purpose heuristics. The results show that the MGA is superior to general GA in solution quality with similar computation times. The MGA solutions are also better than those given by special-purpose heuristics though MGA takes longer computation time.     

A new evolutionary approach to cutting stock problems with and without contiguity

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been applied to many optimization problems successfully in recent years. The genetic algorithm (GAs) and evolutionary programming (EP) are two different types of EAs. GAs use crossover as the primary search operator and mutation as a background operator, while EP uses mutation as the primary search operator and does not employ any crossover. This paper proposes a novel EP algorithm for cutting stock problems with and without contiguity. Two new mutation operators are proposed. Experimental studies have been carried out to examine the effectiveness of the EP algorithm. They show that EP can provide a simple yet more effective alternative to GAs in solving cutting stock problems with and without contiguity. The solutions found by EP are significantly better (in most cases) than or comparable to those found by GAs.Scope and purposeThe one-dimensional cutting stock problem (CSP) is one of the classical combinatorial optimization problems. While most previous work only considered minimizing trim loss, this paper considers CSPs with two objectives. One is the minimization of trim loss (i.e., wastage). The other is the minimization of the number of stocks with wastage, or the number of partially finished items (pattern sequencing or contiguity problem). Although some traditional OR techniques (e.g., programming based approaches) can find the global optimum for small CSPs, they are impractical to find the exact global optimum for large problems due to combinatorial explosion. Heuristic techniques (such as various hill-climbing algorithms) need to be used for large CSPs. One of the heuristic algorithms which have been applied to CSPs recently with success is the genetic algorithm (GA). This paper proposes a much simpler evolutionary algorithm than the GA, based on evolutionary programming (EP). The EP algorithm has been shown to perform significantly better than the GA for most benchmark problems we used and to be comparable to the GA for other problems.     

改进遗传算法PID参数整定及在漂白温度控制中的应用

遗传算法（GA）是一种基于群智能的全局随机优化算法。针对简单遗传算法（SGA）收敛速度慢、易于早熟等缺点,采用改进的自适应交叉算子和自适应变异算子。结合兼顾性能指标和响应过程平衡的适配函数,以多种改进方式相结合的遗传算法对PID参数进行寻优整定。并将该控制器应用于纸浆漂白温度控制中,仿真结果表明：改进遗传算法能够明显改善收敛速度和寻优效果,当被控对象存在较大纯滞后、时间常数特性较大时,采用本方法优化PID控制器参数可获得比较满意的控制效果。     

A weighted sum genetic algorithm to support multiple-partymultiple-objective negotiations

Negotiations are a special class of group decision-making problems that can be formulated as constrained optimization problems and are characterized by high degrees of conflict among the negotiation participants. A variety of negotiation support techniques have been used to help find solutions acceptable to all parties in a negotiation. The paper presents an approach that employs a genetic algorithm (GA) for finding acceptable solutions for multiparty multiobjective negotiations. The GA approach is consistent with the complex nature of real-world negotiations and is therefore capable of addressing more realistic negotiation scenarios than previous techniques in the literature allow. In addition to the traditional genetic operators of reproduction, crossover, and mutation, the search is enhanced with a new operator called trade. The trade operator simulates concessions that might be made by parties during the negotiation process. GA performance with the trade operator is compared to a traditional GA, nonlinear programming, a hill-climber, and a random search. Experimental results show the GA with the trade operator performs better than these other more traditional approaches     

Model selection for least squares support vector regressions based on small-world strategy

Model selection plays a key role in the application of support vector machine (SVM). In this paper, a method of model selection based on the small-world strategy is proposed for least squares support vector regression (LS-SVR). In this method, the model selection is treated as a single-objective global optimization problem in which generalization performance measure performs as fitness function. To get better optimization performance, the main idea of depending more heavily on dense local connections in small-world phenomenon is considered, and a new small-world optimization algorithm based on tabu search, called the tabu-based small-world optimization (TSWO), is proposed by employing tabu search to construct local search operator. Therefore, the hyper-parameters with best generalization performance can be chosen as the global optimum based on the powerful search ability of TSWO. Experiments on six complex multimodal functions are conducted, demonstrating that TSWO performs better in avoiding premature of the population in comparison with the genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Moreover, the effectiveness of leave-one-out bound of LS-SVM on regression problems is tested on noisy sinc function and benchmark data sets, and the numerical results show that the model selection using TSWO can almost obtain smaller generalization errors than using GA and PSO with three generalization performance measures adopted.     

基于定向爬山的遗传算法

爬山法是一种局部搜索能力相当好的算法,主要是因为它是通过个体的优劣信息来引导搜索的。而传统的遗传算法作为一种全局搜索算法,在搜索过程中却没有考虑个体间的信息,而仅依靠个体适应度来引导搜索,使得算法的收敛性受到限制。将定向爬山机制应用于遗传算法,提出了一种基于定向爬山的遗传算法（OHCGA）。该算法结合了爬山法与遗传算法的优点,通过比较个体的优劣,使用定向爬山操作引导算法向更优秀的解区域进行搜索。实验结果表明,与传统遗传算法（TGA）相比,OHCGA较大地提高了算法的收敛速度和搜索最优解的能力。     

An integer encoding grey wolf optimizer for virtual network function placement

This paper studies the virtual network function placement (VNF-P) problem in the context of network function virtualization (NFV), where the end-to-end delay of a requested service function chain (SFC) is minimized and the compute, storage, I/O and bandwidth resources are considered. To address this problem, an integer encoding grey wolf optimizer (IEGWO) is proposed. IEGWO has two significant features, namely an integer encoding scheme and a new wolf position update mechanism. The integer encoding scheme is problem-specific and offers a natural way to represent VNF-P solutions. The proposed wolf position update mechanism divides the wolf pack into two groups in each iteration, where one group performs exploitation while the other focuses on global exploration. It provides the search with a balanced local exploitation and global exploration during evolution. Performance evaluation has been conducted based on 20 test instances and IEGWO is compared with five state-of-the-art meta-heuristics, including the black hole algorithm (BH), the genetic algorithm (GA), the group counseling optimization (GCO), the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO). Simulation results demonstrate that compared with BH, GA, GCO, PSO and TLBO, IEGWO achieves significantly better solution quality regarding the mean (standard deviation), boxplot and t-test results of the best fitness values obtained.     

Real-coded memetic algorithms with crossover hill-climbing

This paper presents a real-coded memetic algorithm that applies a crossover hill-climbing to solutions produced by the genetic operators. On the one hand, the memetic algorithm provides global search (reliability) by means of the promotion of high levels of population diversity. On the other, the crossover hill-climbing exploits the self-adaptive capacity of real-parameter crossover operators with the aim of producing an effective local tuning on the solutions (accuracy). An important aspect of the memetic algorithm proposed is that it adaptively assigns different local search probabilities to individuals. It was observed that the algorithm adjusts the global/local search balance according to the particularities of each problem instance. Experimental results show that, for a wide range of problems, the method we propose here consistently outperforms other real-coded memetic algorithms which appeared in the literature.     

An efficient genetic algorithm for automated mining of both positive and negative quantitative association rules

In this paper, a genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed as a search strategy for not only positive but also negative quantitative association rule (AR) mining within databases. Contrary to the methods used as usual, ARs are directly mined without generating frequent itemsets. The proposed GA performs a database-independent approach that does not rely upon the minimum support and the minimum confidence thresholds that are hard to determine for each database. Instead of randomly generated initial population, uniform population that forces the initial population to be not far away from the solutions and distributes it in the feasible region uniformly is used. An adaptive mutation probability, a new operator called uniform operator that ensures the genetic diversity, and an efficient adjusted fitness function are used for mining all interesting ARs from the last population in only single run of GA. The efficiency of the proposed GA is validated upon synthetic and real databases.     

A study on hybrid random signal-based learning and its applications

In this paper, we propose three effective hybrid random signal-based learning (RSL) algorithms which are a combination of RSL with simulated annealing (SA) and a genetic algorithm (GA) to obtain a global solution that can be used in combinatorial optimization problems. GAs are becoming more popular because of their relative simplicity and robustness. GAs are global search techniques for non-linear optimization, but they are not good at fine-tuning solutions. RSL is similar to the reinforcement learning of neural networks using random signals. It can find an accurate solution in local search space. However, it is poor at hill-climbing, whereas simulated annealing has the ability to perform probabilistic hill-climbing. Therefore, combining them yields effective hybrid algorithms, i.e. hybrid RSL algorithms, with the merits of both. To check the generalization ability of the proposed algorithms, the optimizations of several benchmark test functions are considered, while the optimization of a fuzzy logic controller for the inverted pendulum is detailed to show the applicability of the proposed algorithms to fuzzy control.     

Self-adaptive Bat Algorithm With Genetic Operations

Swarm intelligence in a bat algorithm (BA) provides social learning. Genetic operations for reproducing individuals in a genetic algorithm (GA) offer global search ability in solving complex optimization problems. Their integration provides an opportunity for improved search performance. However, existing studies adopt only one genetic operation of GA, or design hybrid algorithms that divide the overall population into multiple subpopulations that evolve in parallel with limited interactions only. Differing from them, this work proposes an improved self-adaptive bat algorithm with genetic operations (SBAGO) where GA and BA are combined in a highly integrated way. Specifically, SBAGO performs their genetic operations of GA on previous search information of BA solutions to produce new exemplars that are of high-diversity and high-quality. Guided by these exemplars, SBAGO improves both BA’s efficiency and global search capability. We evaluate this approach by using 29 widely-adopted problems from four test suites. SBAGO is also evaluated by a real-life optimization problem in mobile edge computing systems. Experimental results show that SBAGO outperforms its widely-used and recently proposed peers in terms of effectiveness, search accuracy, local optima avoidance, and robustness.      

An enhanced GA technique for system training and prognostics

The commonly used genetic algorithm (GA)-based methods have some shortcomings in applications such as time-consuming and slow convergence. A novel enhanced genetic algorithm (EGA) technique is developed in this paper to overcome these problems in classical GA methods so as to provide a more efficient technique for system training and optimization. Two approaches are proposed in the EGA technique: Firstly, a novel group-based branch crossover operator is suggested to thoroughly explore local space and speed up convergence. Secondly, an enhanced MPT (Makinen-Periaux-Toivanen) mutation operator is proposed to promote global search capability. The effectiveness of the developed EGA is verified by simulations based on a series of benchmark test problems. The EGA technique is also implemented to train a neural-fuzzy predictor for real-time gear system monitoring. Test results show that the branch crossover operator and enhanced MPT mutation operator can effectively improve the convergence speed and global search capability. The EGA technique outperforms other related GA methods with respect to convergence speed and global search capability.     

遗传算法用于曲线的误差约束多边形近似

提出了一种求解曲线的误差约束多边形近似问题的遗传算法.其主要思想是:1)采用变长染色体编码机制,以减少存储空间和计算时间的消耗;2)针对问题的特点,提出了一种新的杂交算子——基因消去杂交,以尽可能地消去染色体上的冗余基因,从而提高算法的寻优能力;3)采用染色体修复策略处理遗传操作产生的不可行解,该策略通过迭代地向染色体追加有价值的候选基因来实现染色体的修复,并提出一种对染色体的候选基因进行评估的机制.通过实验评估并与其他遗传算法进行比较,结果表明,提出的算法性能更优越.     

求解最大团问题的混合修复遗传算法及其在社会网络中的应用

社会网络分析是数据挖掘中与社会生活联系最紧密的热点之一,凝聚子群分析是一种典型的社会网络子结构分析方法,其中最大团结构是关系最紧密的凝聚子群,最大团问题的研究在社会网络分析中有重要意义。针对遗传算法在求解最大团问题中运行时间长、部分基准图例求解精度不高等问题,提出了一种基于混合修复策略的遗传算法MGA。MGA算法融合度修复和随机染色体修复方法并结合随机配对的精英选择、均匀块交叉和倒位变异算子,可以有效避免算法陷入局部最优,在加快收敛速度和丰富种群多样性方面有明显效果。算法在DIMACS基准图例和典型的社会网络实例上进行了测试,实验结果表明MGA算法具有较好的求解精度和较快的收敛速度。     

广义粒子群优化模型

粒子群优化算法提出至今一直未能有效解决的离散及组合优化问题．针对这个问题,文中首先回顾了粒子群优化算法在整数规划问题的应用以及该算法的二进制离散优化模型,并分析了其缺陷．然后,基于传统算法的速度一位移更新操作,在分析粒子群优化机理的基础上提出了广义粒子群优化模型（GPSO）,使其适用于解决离散及组合优化问题．GPSO模型本质仍然符合粒子群优化机理,但是其粒子更新策略既可根据优化问题的特点设计,也可实现与已有方法的融合．该文以旅行商问题（TSP）为例,针对遗传算法（GA）解决该问题的成功经验,使用遗传操作作为GPSO模型中的更新算子,进一步提出基于遗传操作的粒子群优化模型,并以Inverover算子作为模型中具体的遗传操作设计了基于GPSO模型的TSP算法．与采用相同遗传操作的GA比较,基于GPSO模型的算法解的质量与收敛稳定性提高,同时计算费用显著降低．     

A hybrid genetic algorithm for the traveling salesman problem with pickup and delivery

In this paper, a hybrid genetic algorithm （GA） is proposed for the traveling salesman problem （TSP） with pickup and delivery （TSPPD）. In our algorithm, a novel pheromone-based crossover operator is advanced that utilizes both local and global information to construct offspring. In addition, a local search procedure is integrated into the GA to accelerate convergence. The proposed GA has been tested on benchmark instances, and the computational results show that it gives better convergence than existing heuristics.     

Mutation Hopfield neural network and its applications

In this paper, a new operator is proposed to optimize the traditional Hopfield neural network (HNN). The key idea is to incorporate the global search capability of the Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs) into the HNN, which typically has a powerful local search capability and fast operation. On account of this property of the EDA, our proposed algorithm also exhibits a powerful global search capability. In addition, the possible infeasible solutions generated during the re-sampling period of the EDA are eliminated by the HNN. Therefore, the merits of both these methods are combined in a unified framework. The proposed model is tested on a numerical example, the max-cut problem. The new and optimized model yielded a better performance than certain traditional intelligent optimization methods, such as HNN, genetic algorithm (GA). The proposed mutation Hopfield neural network (MHNN) is also used to solve a practical problem, aircraft landing scheduling (ALS). Compared with first-come-first-served sequence, MHNN sequence reduces both total landing time and total delay.     

扩散遗传算法及其应用研究

针对遗传算法在局部搜索能力方面的缺陷,提出了一种基于扩散算子的遗产算法(简称扩散遗产算法)。该算法中包含的扩散算子是变异算子,其主要作用是在遗传搜索中进行局部搜索。用扩散遗传算法和实数编码遗传算法分别训练用于解XOR问题的神经网络,对比结果表明,论文提出的算法兼具强的全局搜索能力和局部搜索能力,因此,该算法可以不借助其它局部搜索算法而单独作为神经网络训练算法,从而简化训练算法,提高训练效率。该算法对提高遗传算法搜索效率和求解精度具有重要的意义。     

Enhancing genetic algorithms for dependent job scheduling in grid computing environments

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are stochastic search techniques based on principles of natural selection and recombination that attempt to find optimal solutions in polynomial time by manipulating a population of candidate solutions. GAs have been widely used for job scheduling optimisation in both homogeneous and heterogeneous computing environments. When compared with list scheduling heuristics, GAs can potentially provide better solutions but require much longer processing time and significant experimentation to determine GA parameters. This paper presents a GA for scheduling dependent jobs in grid computing environments. A?number of selection and pre-selection criteria for the GA are evaluated with an aim to improve GA performance in job scheduling optimization. A?Task Matching with Data scheme is proposed as a GA mutation operator. Furthermore, the effect of the choice of heuristics for seeding the GA is investigated.