一种带共享因子的人工蜂群算法

人工蜂群(ABC)算法在搜索过程中收敛速度较慢,且容易出现早熟现象。针对该问题,提出一种带共享因子的ABC算法。通过共享因子动态调整蜜蜂与其邻域个体之间的信息共享程度,在搜索初始阶段适当减小信息共享,避免蜂群飞过最优解所在区域,在搜索中后期增强信息共享,提高蜂群的全局寻优性能。函数测试结果表明,该算法具有较好的收敛性能,适用于求解复杂函数优化问题。     

Discrete optimum design of truss structures using artificial bee colony algorithm

Over the past few years, swarm intelligence based optimization techniques such as ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization have received considerable attention from engineering researchers and practitioners. These algorithms have been used in the solution of various engineering problems. Recently, a relatively new swarm based optimization algorithm called the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm has begun to attract interest from researchers to solve optimization problems. The aim of this study is to present an optimization algorithm based on the ABC algorithm for the discrete optimum design of truss structures. The ABC algorithm is a meta-heuristic optimization technique that mimics the process of food foraging of honeybees. Originally the ABC algorithm was developed for continuous function optimization problems. This paper describes the modifications made to the ABC algorithm in order to solve discrete optimization problems and to improve the algorithm’s performance. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the modified algorithm, four structural problems with up to 582 truss members and 29 design variables were solved and the results were compared with those obtained using other well-known meta-heuristic search techniques. The results demonstrate that the ABC algorithm is very effective and robust for the discrete optimization designs of truss structural problems.     

Patch-Levy-based initialization algorithm for Bees Algorithm

The Bees Algorithm (BA) is a population-based metaheuristic algorithm inspired by the foraging behavior of honeybees. This algorithm has been successfully used as an optimization tool in combinatorial and functional optimization fields. In addition, its behavior very closely mimics the actual behavior that occurs in nature, and it is very simple and easy to implement. However, its convergence speed to the optimal solution still needs further improvement and it also needs a mechanism to obviate getting trapped in local optima. In this paper, a novel initialization algorithm based on the patch concept and Levy flight distribution is proposed to initialize the population of bees in BA. Consequently, we incorporate this initialization procedure into a proposed enhanced BA variant. The proposed variant is more natural than conventional variants of BA. It mimics the patch environment in nature and Levy flight, which is believed to characterize the foraging patterns of bees in nature. The results of experiments conducted on several widely used high-dimensional benchmarks indicate that our proposed enhanced BA variant significantly outperforms other BA variants and state-of-the-art variants of the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm in terms of solution quality, convergence speed, and success rate. In addition, the results of experimental analyses conducted indicate that our proposed enhanced BA is very stable, has the ability to deal with differences in search ranges, and rapidly converges without getting stuck in local optima.     

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) for multi-objective design optimization of composite structures

In this paper, we present a generic method/model for multi-objective design optimization of laminated composite components, based on Vector Evaluated Artificial Bee Colony (VEABC) algorithm. VEABC is a parallel vector evaluated type, swarm intelligence multi-objective variant of the Artificial Bee Colony algorithm (ABC). In the current work a modified version of VEABC algorithm for discrete variables has been developed and implemented successfully for the multi-objective design optimization of composites. The problem is formulated with multiple objectives of minimizing weight and the total cost of the composite component to achieve a specified strength. The primary optimization variables are the number of layers, its stacking sequence (the orientation of the layers) and thickness of each layer. The classical lamination theory is utilized to determine the stresses in the component and the design is evaluated based on three failure criteria: failure mechanism based failure criteria, maximum stress failure criteria and the tsai-wu failure criteria. The optimization method is validated for a number of different loading configurations—uniaxial, biaxial and bending loads. The design optimization has been carried for both variable stacking sequences, as well fixed standard stacking schemes and a comparative study of the different design configurations evolved has been presented. Finally the performance is evaluated in comparison with other nature inspired techniques which includes Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Artificial Immune System (AIS) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The performance of ABC is at par with that of PSO, AIS and GA for all the loading configurations.     

An Artificial Bee Colony algorithm with guide of global & local optima and asynchronous scaling factors for numerical optimization

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a wildly used optimization algorithm. However, ABC is excellent in exploration but poor in exploitation. To improve the convergence performance of ABC and establish a better searching mechanism for the global optimum, an improved ABC algorithm is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the proposed algorithm integrates the information of previous best solution into the search equation for employed bees and global best solution into the update equation for onlooker bees to improve the exploitation. Secondly, for a better balance between the exploration and exploitation of search, an S-type adaptive scaling factors are introduced in employed bees’ search equation. Furthermore, the searching policy of scout bees is modified. The scout bees need update food source in each cycle in order to increase diversity and stochasticity of the bees and mitigate stagnation problem. Finally, the improved algorithms is compared with other two improved ABCs and three recent algorithms on a set of classical benchmark functions. The experimental results show that the our proposed algorithm is effective and robust and outperform than other algorithms.     

A novel artificial bee colony algorithm with Powell's method

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is a relatively new optimization technique which has been shown to be competitive to other population-based algorithms. However, there is still an insufficiency in ABC regarding its solution search equation, which is good at exploration but poor at exploitation. To address this concerning issue, we first propose a modified search equation which is applied to generate a candidate solution in the onlookers phase to improve the search ability of ABC. Further, we use the Powell's method as a local search tool to enhance the exploitation of the algorithm. The new algorithm is tested on 22 unconstrained benchmark functions and 13 constrained benchmark functions, and are compared with some other ABCs and several state-of-the-art algorithms. The comparisons show that the proposed algorithm offers the highest solution quality, fastest global convergence, and strongest robustness among all the contenders on almost all test functions.     

改进的人工蜂群算法在函数优化问题中的应用

人工蜂群算法是近年来新提出的一种优化算法。针对标准人工蜂群算法的局部搜索能力差,精度低的缺点,提出了一个改进的人工蜂群算法,利用全局最优解和个体极值的信息来改进人工蜂群算法中的搜索模式,并引入异步变化学习因子,保持全局搜索和局部搜索的平衡。将改进的人工蜂群算法在函数优化问题上进行测试,结果表明改进的人工蜂群算法优于原算法。     

Multi-circle detection on images using artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization

Hough transform has been the most common method for circle detection, exhibiting robustness, but adversely demanding considerable computational effort and large memory requirements. Alternative approaches include heuristic methods that employ iterative optimization procedures for detecting multiple circles. Since only one circle can be marked at each optimization cycle, multiple executions ought to be enforced in order to achieve multi-detection. This paper presents an algorithm for automatic detection of multiple circular shapes that considers the overall process as a multi-modal optimization problem. The approach is based on the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, a swarm optimization algorithm inspired by the intelligent foraging behavior of honeybees. Unlike the original ABC algorithm, the proposed approach presents the addition of a memory for discarded solutions. Such memory allows holding important information regarding other local optima, which might have emerged during the optimization process. The detector uses a combination of three non-collinear edge points as parameters to determine circle candidates. A matching function (nectar-amount) determines if such circle candidates (bee-food sources) are actually present in the image. Guided by the values of such matching functions, the set of encoded candidate circles are evolved through the ABC algorithm so that the best candidate (global optimum) can be fitted into an actual circle within the edge-only image. Then, an analysis of the incorporated memory is executed in order to identify potential local optima, i.e., other circles. The proposed method is able to detect single or multiple circles from a digital image through only one optimization pass. Simulation results over several synthetic and natural images, with a varying range of complexity, validate the efficiency of the proposed technique regarding its accuracy, speed, and robustness.     

Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm in the design optimization of RC continuous beams

The objective of this study is to obtain the optimum design for reinforced concrete continuous beams in terms of cross section dimensions and reinforcement details using a fine tuned Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm while still satisfying the constraints of the ACI Code (2008). The ABC algorithm used in this paper has been slightly modified to include a Variable Changing Percentage (VCP) that further improves its performance when dealing with members consisted of multiple variables. The objective function is the total cost of the continuous beam which includes the cost of concrete, formwork and reinforcing steel bars. The design variables used are beam width, beam height, number and diameter of: bottom continuous reinforcing bars, bottom cutoff reinforcing bars, top continuous reinforcing bars and top cutoff reinforcing bars as well as the diameter of stirrups. Four RC beams of varying complexity are presented and optimized. The first three beams are used to fine tune the control parameters of the ABC algorithm, whereas the fourth beam was previously optimized by Arafa et al. (J Artif Intell 76–88, 2011) and is presented here to prove the superiority of this relatively new optimization algorithm.     

A multi-threshold segmentation approach based on Artificial Bee Colony optimization

This paper explores the use of the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm to compute threshold selection for image segmentation. ABC is an evolutionary algorithm inspired by the intelligent behavior of honey-bees which has been successfully employed to solve complex optimization problems. In this approach, an image 1-D histogram is approximated through a Gaussian mixture model whose parameters are calculated by the ABC algorithm. In the model, each Gaussian function represents a pixel class and therefore a threshold point. Unlike the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm, the ABC method shows fast convergence and low sensitivity to initial conditions. Remarkably, it also improves complex time-consuming computations commonly required by gradient-based methods. Experimental results over multiple images with different range of complexity validate the efficiency of the proposed technique with regard to segmentation accuracy, speed, and robustness. The paper also includes an experimental comparison to the EM and to one gradient-based method which ultimately demonstrates a better performance from the proposed algorithm.     

改进搜索策略的人工蜂群算法

针对人工蜂群(ABC)算法存在收敛速度慢、收敛精度低的问题,给出一种改进的人工蜂群算法用于数值函数优化问题。在ABC的邻域搜索公式中利用目标函数自适应调整步长,并根据迭代次数非线性减小侦查蜂的搜索范围。改进ABC算法提高了ABC算法的局部搜索能力,能够有效避免早熟收敛。基于6个标准测试函数的仿真实验表明,改进ABC算法的寻优能力有较大提高,对于多个高维多模态函数该算法可取得理论全局最优解。与对比算法相比,该算法具有更高的收敛精度,并且收敛速度更快。     

Structure sharing for quantified terms: Fundamentals

Structure sharing is used in symbolic computation to share a common top level between terms with different lower levels. It is widely used in the implementation of Prolog interpreters and is of interest for the implementation of automatic theorem provers, interactive proof editors and verification systems. Previously, structure sharing has been applied only to free-variable terms. In this paper we extend the structure sharing technique to quantified terms. We give an efficient unification algorithm of our structure sharing representation of quantified terms, and we prove the correctness of the algorithm.     

Synergizing fitness learning with proximity-based food source selection in artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical optimization

Evolutionary computation (EC) paradigm has undergone extensions in the recent years diverging from the natural process of genetic evolution to the simulation of natural life processes exhibited by the living organisms. Bee colonies exemplify a high level of intrinsic interdependence and co-ordination among its members, and algorithms inspired from the bee colonies have gained recent prominence in the field of swarm based metaheuristics. The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm was recently developed, by simulating the minimalistic foraging model of honeybees in search of food sources, for solving real-parameter, non-convex, and non-smooth optimization problems. The single parameter perturbation in classical ABC resulted in fairly commendable performance for simple problems without epistasis of variables (separable). However, it suffered from narrow search zone and slow convergence which eventually led to poor exploitation tendency. Even with the increase in dimensionality, a significant deterioration was observed in the ability of ABC to locate the optimum in a huge search volume. Some of the probable shortcomings in the basic ABC approach, as observed, are the single parameter perturbation instead of a multiple one, ignoring the fitness to reward ratio while selecting food sites, and most importantly the absence of environmental factors in the algorithm design. Research has shown that spatial environmental factors play a crucial role in insect locomotion and foragers seem to learn the direction to be undertaken based on the relative analysis of its proximal surroundings. Most importantly, the mapping of the forager locomotion from three dimensional search spaces to a multidimensional solution space calls forth the implementation of multiple modification schemes. Based on the fundamental observation pertaining to the dynamics of ABC, this article proposes an improved variant of ABC aimed at improving the optimizing ability of the algorithm over an extended set of problems. The hybridization of the proposed fitness learning mechanism with a weighted selection scheme and proximity based stimuli helps to achieve a fine blending of explorative and exploitative behaviour by enhancing both local and global searching ability of the algorithm. This enhances the ability of the swarm agents to detect optimal regions in the unexplored fitness basins. With respect to its immediate surroundings, a proximity based component is added to the normal positional modification of the onlookers and is enacted through an improved probability selection scheme that takes the T/E (total reward to distance) ratio metric into account. The biologically-motivated, hybridized variant of ABC achieves a statistically superior performance on majority of the tested benchmark instances, as compared to some of the most prominent state-of-the-art algorithms, as is demonstrated through a detailed experimental evaluation and verified statistically.     

Performance investigation of ABC algorithm in multi-area power system with multiple interconnected generators

This paper presents an extensive study on the application of Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm for load frequency control (LFC) in multi-area power system with multiple interconnected generators. The LFC model incorporates various possible physical constraints and non-linearities such as generation rate constraint, time delay, dead zone and boiler. The ABC algorithm is used to find the optimum PID controller parameters. The tuning performance of the algorithm is comparatively investigated against different optimization technique such as evolutionary programming (EP), genetic algorithm (GA), gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The robustness analysis of the system is also evaluated by investigating the dynamic response of the controller with load demand at varying time step, tuning based on different performance criterion and by varying the load demand. The performance of the system is evaluated based on the settling time and maximum overshoot value of the frequency deviation response. The performance of ABC is also verified against an exhaustive search based on interval halving method. Despite employing a single controller for multiple interconnected generators, the optimized controller is able to successfully damp oscillations in the system response and regulate the area control error back to zero in minimal amount of time. The results indicate the superiority of the ABC algorithm’s search mechanism in finding the optimum set of PID controller’s gain.     

A secret sharing scheme for EBTC using steganography

In this paper, a new method based on Block Truncation Coding (BTC) and the halftoning technique is proposed for secret sharing of lossy compressed images. BTC is a simple and efficient image compression technique. However, it yields images of undesirable quality, and significant blocking effects are seen as the block size that is used increases. A modified method known as Enhanced Block Truncation Coding (EBTC) is proposed to solve these problems. For secret sharing, we propose a (2, 2) secret sharing scheme which provides authentication using DE scheme. This scheme was developed for data hiding with grayscale images, but our proposed EBTC uses bitmap images for which the DE scheme is not appropriate. We show the solution for such a problem. Moreover, we reduce the computation complexity for secret sharing using the DE algorithm because past schemes which used polynomial or interpolation algorithms require too much time for secret sharing. In addition, we show how to authenticate a cover image. Experimental results show that our proposed scheme provides secret sharing with proper authentication and acceptable computational complexity.     

Memetic search in artificial bee colony algorithm

Artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm is relatively a simple and recent population based probabilistic approach for global optimization. ABC has been outperformed over some Nature Inspired Algorithms (NIAs) when tested over benchmark as well as real world optimization problems. The solution search equation of ABC is significantly influenced by a random quantity which helps in exploration at the cost of exploitation of the search space. In the solution search equation of ABC, there is a enough chance to skip the true solution due to large step size. In order to balance between diversity and convergence capability of the ABC, a new local search phase is integrated with the basic ABC to exploit the search space identified by the best individual in the swarm. In the proposed phase, ABC works as a local search algorithm in which, the step size that is required to update the best solution, is controlled by Golden Section Search approach. The proposed strategy is named as Memetic ABC (MeABC). In MeABC, new solutions are generated around the best solution and it helps to enhance the exploitation capability of ABC. MeABC is established as a modified ABC algorithm through experiments over 20 test problems of different complexities and 4 well known engineering optimization problems.     

部分遮蔽下改进樽海鞘群算法的光伏系统最大功率跟踪

部分遮蔽条件(partial shading condition)会使光伏系统的功率–电压(P--V)特性曲线出现多个峰值,常规的最大功率跟踪(MPPT)算法易陷入局部最大功率点(LMPP)已不再适用.本文提出了一款新型启发式算法,即改进樽海鞘群算法(MSSA),用于部分遮蔽条件下光伏系统MPPT. MSSA在原有樽海鞘群算法(SSA)的基础上,引入了文化基因算法(memetic algorithm),以樽海鞘链为种群单位,采用多个樽海鞘链同时进行独立寻优,以提高算法全局搜索和局部探索的能力;同时,通过群落中所有樽海鞘间的信息交流,重组产生新的樽海鞘链,以提高算法的收敛稳定性.本文通过3个算例对MSSA的优化性能进行了研究,即恒温恒光照强度、恒温变光照强度和变温变光照强度.仿真结果表明,与增量电导法(INC)、遗传算法(GA)、粒子群算法(PSO)、灰狼算法(GWO)和樽海鞘群算法(SSA)相比,所提算法能在部分遮蔽条件下快速、稳定地获取最大光能.最后,基于d Space的硬件在环实验(HIL)验证了所提算法的硬件可行性.     

Artificial bee colony algorithm with memory

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) is a new type of swarm intelligence methods which imitates the foraging behavior of honeybees. Due to its simple implementation with very small number of control parameters, many efforts have been done to explore ABC research in both algorithms and applications. In this paper, a new ABC variant named ABC with memory algorithm (ABCM) is described, which imitates a memory mechanism to the artificial bees to memorize their previous successful experiences of foraging behavior. The memory mechanism is applied to guide the further foraging of the artificial bees. Essentially, ABCM is inspired by the biological study of natural honeybees, rather than most of the other ABC variants that integrate existing algorithms into ABC framework. The superiority of ABCM is analyzed on a set of benchmark problems in comparison with ABC, quick ABC and several state-of-the-art algorithms.     

Cross-lingual thesaurus for multilingual knowledge management

The Web is a universal repository of human knowledge and culture which has allowed unprecedented sharing of ideas and information in a scale never seen before. It can also be considered as a universal digital library interconnecting digital libraries in multiple domains and languages. Beside the advance of information technology, the global economy has also accelerated the development of inter-organizational information systems. Managing knowledge obtained in multilingual information systems from multiple geographical regions is an essential component in the contemporary inter-organization information systems. An organization cannot claim itself to be a global organization unless it is capable to overcome the cultural and language barriers in their knowledge management. Cross-lingual semantic interoperability is a challenge in multilingual knowledge management systems. Dictionary is a tool that is widely utilized in commercial systems to cross the language barrier. However, terms available in dictionary are always limited. As language is evolving, there are new words being created from time to time. For examples, there are new technical terms and name entities such as RFID and Baidu. To solve the problem of cross-lingual semantic interoperability, an associative constraint network approach is investigated to construct an automatic cross-lingual thesaurus. In this work, we have investigated the backmarking algorithm and the forward evaluation algorithm to resolve the constraint satisfaction problem represented by the associative constraint network. Experiments have been conducted and show that the forward evaluation algorithm outperforms the backmarking one in terms of precision and recall but the backmarking algorithm is more efficient than the forward evaluation algorithm. We have also benchmarked with our earlier technique, Hopfield network, and showed that the associate constraint network (either backmarking or forward evaluation) outperforms in precision, recall, and efficiency.     

A binary ABC algorithm based on advanced similarity scheme for feature selection

Feature selection is the basic pre-processing task of eliminating irrelevant or redundant features through investigating complicated interactions among features in a feature set. Due to its critical role in classification and computational time, it has attracted researchers’ attention for the last five decades. However, it still remains a challenge. This paper proposes a binary artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for the feature selection problems, which is developed by integrating evolutionary based similarity search mechanisms into an existing binary ABC variant. The performance analysis of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparing it with some well-known variants of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and ABC algorithms, including standard binary PSO, new velocity based binary PSO, quantum inspired binary PSO, discrete ABC, modification rate based ABC, angle modulated ABC, and genetic algorithms on 10 benchmark datasets. The results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain higher classification performance in both training and test sets, and can eliminate irrelevant and redundant features more effectively than the other approaches. Note that all the algorithms used in this paper except for standard binary PSO and GA are employed for the first time in feature selection.