Dynamic mechanism-assisted artificial bee colony optimization for image segmentation of COVID-19 chest X-ray

The artificial bee colony optimization (ABC) algorithm operates efficiently and converges well but still suffers from the problem of easily falling into local optimum, and there is room for improving the convergence speed. For this reason, this paper proposes a dynamic mechanism-assisted ABC algorithm (EABC), which contains a dynamic approximation strategy for the optimal solution and a periodic variable food source number strategy. The dynamic approximation of the optimal solution strategy improves the swarm position update formulation and increases the pre-convergence speed of the ABC algorithm. Utilizing a periodic variable food source number scheme allows for more rapid algorithm convergence while simultaneously producing higher variability and diminishing the chances of the algorithm becoming trapped in local optima. In addition, this paper proposes a multi-threshold image segmentation (MTIS) model for COVID-19 X-ray chest images based on EABC. In this paper, the optimization performance of EABC is verified on the benchmark function of IEEE CEC 2017. The effectiveness of the EABC-based MTIS model is also validated on COVID-19 X-ray chest images.     

A multiobjective swarm intelligence approach based on artificial bee colony for reliable DNA sequence design

The design of reliable DNA sequences is crucial in many engineering applications which depend on DNA-based technologies, such as nanotechnology or DNA computing. In these cases, two of the most important properties that must be controlled to obtain reliable sequences are self-assembly and self-complementary hybridization. These processes have to be restricted to avoid undesirable reactions, because in the specific case of DNA computing, undesirable reactions usually lead to incorrect computations. Therefore, it is important to design robust sets of sequences which provide efficient and reliable computations. The design of reliable DNA sequences involves heterogeneous and conflicting design criteria that do not fit traditional optimization methods. In this paper, DNA sequence design has been formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem and a novel multiobjective approach based on swarm intelligence has been proposed to solve it. Specifically, a multiobjective version of the Artificial Bee Colony metaheuristics (MO-ABC) is developed to tackle the problem. MO-ABC takes in consideration six different conflicting design criteria to generate reliable DNA sequences that can be used for bio-molecular computing. Moreover, in order to verify the effectiveness of the novel multiobjective proposal, formal comparisons with the well-known multiobjective standard NSGA-II (fast non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm) were performed. After a detailed study, results indicate that our artificial swarm intelligence approach obtains satisfactory reliable DNA sequences. Two multiobjective indicators were used in order to compare the developed algorithms: hypervolume and set coverage. Finally, other relevant works published in the literature were also studied to validate our results. To this respect the conclusion that can be drawn is that the novel approach proposed in this paper obtains very promising DNA sequences that significantly surpass other results previously published.     

Hybrid multiobjective artificial bee colony for multiple sequence alignment

In the bioinformatics community, it is really important to find an accurate and simultaneous alignment among diverse biological sequences which are assumed to have an evolutionary relationship. From the alignment, the sequences homology is inferred and the shared evolutionary origins among the sequences are extracted by using phylogenetic analysis. This problem is known as the multiple sequence alignment (MSA) problem. In the literature, several approaches have been proposed to solve the MSA problem, such as progressive alignments methods, consistency-based algorithms, or genetic algorithms (GAs). In this work, we propose a Hybrid Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm based on the behaviour of honey bees for solving the MSA problem, the hybrid multiobjective artificial bee colony (HMOABC) algorithm. HMOABC considers two objective functions with the aim of preserving the quality and consistency of the alignment: the weighted sum-of-pairs function with affine gap penalties (WSP) and the number of totally conserved (TC) columns score. In order to assess the accuracy of HMOABC, we have used the BAliBASE benchmark (version 3.0), which according to the developers presents more challenging test cases representing the real problems encountered when aligning large sets of complex sequences. Our multiobjective approach has been compared with 13 well-known methods in bioinformatics field and with other 6 evolutionary algorithms published in the literature.     

多目标粒子群和人工蜂群混合优化的阈值图像分割算法

在图像分割中,为了准确地把目标和背景分离出来,提出了一种基于多目标粒子群和人工蜂群混合优化的阈值图像分割算法。在多目标优化的框架下,将改进的类间方差准则和最大熵准则作为适应度函数,通过粒子群和蜂群混合优化这2个适应度函数来获得1组非支配解。同时,为了提高全局和局部搜索能力,在蜂群进化时,将粒子群的全局最优解引入到人工蜂群算法的雇佣蜂阶段蜜源的更新中,并对搜索方程进行改进。最后通过类间差异和改进的类内差异的加权比值,从一组非支配解中选取最优阈值。实验结果表明,该算法能够取得理想的分割结果。     

改进蜂群算法的图像阈值分割方法

为快速高效地进行图像分割,针对人工蜂群算法存在的收敛速度慢、易陷入局部最优解等问题,提出了一种基于改进人工蜂群算法分割二维OTSU图像的新方法。通过对蜜源更新过程中向当前最优蜜源方向进行引导,可以加快算法的收敛速度;为避免算法陷入局部最优并加快收敛速度,在局部搜索过程中逐步缩减了搜索范围并加入了放弃机制;针对较大梯度值无意义的问题,限定了蜜源范围,以提高算法的效率。最后结合具有不同直方图分布的图像进行了实验,结果表明了算法稳健、高效、快速的特性。     

基于蚁群优化多层图划分的彩色图像分割方法

为了消除基于谱聚类的归一化切分图像分割中聚类参数对分割结果的约束,提出了一种基于蚁群优化的多层图划分算法来进行归一化切分,进而对彩色自然景观图像进行分割.该算法将代表图像的相似度图作为蚁群的栖息环境,在归一化割准则的指导下,通过蚂蚁的觅食行为将相似的顶点逐渐聚集在一起,从而以多层的方式完成图划分.为了降低图像分割的计算量,利用超像素对图像进行预处理.实验对比表明,该算法消除了归一化切分分割结果对聚类参数的依赖,并提高了归一化切分分割的准确性和速度.     

Elite-guided multi-objective artificial bee colony algorithm

Multi-objective optimization has been a difficult problem and a research focus in the field of science and engineering. This paper presents a novel multi-objective optimization algorithm called elite-guided multi-objective artificial bee colony (EMOABC) algorithm. In our proposal, the fast non-dominated sorting and population selection strategy are applied to measure the quality of the solution and select the better ones. The elite-guided solution generation strategy is designed to exploit the neighborhood of the existing solutions based on the guidance of the elite. Furthermore, a novel fitness calculation method is presented to calculate the selecting probability for onlookers. The proposed algorithm is validated on benchmark functions in terms of four indicators: GD, ER, SPR, and TI. The experimental results show that the proposed approach can find solutions with competitive convergence and diversity within a shorter period of time, compared with the traditional multi-objective algorithms. Consequently, it can be considered as a viable alternative to solve the multi-objective optimization problems.     

双搜索人工蜂群算法的彩色图像多阈值分割

针对彩色图像多阈值分割中普遍存在精度低、速度慢的问题,提出了一种新的基于双搜索人工蜂群（DABC）的彩色图像多阈值分割算法。首先由于人工蜂群算法单一的解搜索公式存在不足,对雇佣蜂和跟随蜂各提出了一种搜索公式,进而对人工蜂群算法的相关参数进行了改进,然后做了DABC算法、全局最优引导人工蜂群算法（GABC）、人工蜂群算法（ABC）、粒子群优化算法（PSO）这四种算法的彩色图像多阈值分割对比实验。实验结果表明,与其他三种算法相比,基于DABC的彩色图像多阈值分割方法在分割的精度和速度上都有明显提高,完全能满足实际的需要。     

基于多链量子蜂群算法的模糊聚类图像分割

针对传统模糊C-均值聚类算法对初始值和噪声敏感的缺点,提出了一种基于多链量子蜂群算法的模糊C-均值聚类算法。首先,将多链拓展编码方案应用到量子蜂群算法中,提出了多链量子蜂群算法;其次,利用多链量子蜂群算法来优化模糊C-均值聚类的初始聚类中心;最后,设计一种新的利用多链量子蜂群算法优化模糊C-均值聚类中心的图像分割算法。实验结果表明,所提出的基于多链量子蜂群算法的模糊C-均值聚类图像分割算法是有效的,相对于传统模糊C-均值聚类算法及基于模糊的人工蜂群算法,所提算法在分割正确率、分割速度及鲁棒性上均更有效。     

The continuous artificial bee colony algorithm for binary optimization

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, one of the swarm intelligence algorithms, has been proposed for continuous optimization, inspired intelligent behaviors of real honey bee colony. For the optimization problems having binary structured solution space, the basic ABC algorithm should be modified because its basic version is proposed for solving continuous optimization problems. In this study, an adapted version of ABC, ABC_bin for short, is proposed for binary optimization. In the proposed model for solving binary optimization problems, despite the fact that artificial agents in the algorithm works on the continuous solution space, the food source position obtained by the artificial agents is converted to binary values, before the objective function specific for the problem is evaluated. The accuracy and performance of the proposed approach have been examined on well-known 15 benchmark instances of uncapacitated facility location problem, and the results obtained by ABC_bin are compared with the results of continuous particle swarm optimization (CPSO), binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO), improved binary particle swarm optimization (IBPSO), binary artificial bee colony algorithm (binABC) and discrete artificial bee colony algorithm (DisABC). The performance of ABC_bin is also analyzed under the change of control parameter values. The experimental results and comparisons show that proposed ABC_bin is an alternative and simple binary optimization tool in terms of solution quality and robustness.     

Development and investigation of efficient artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical function optimization

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC), which is inspired by the foraging behavior of honey bee swarm, is a biological-inspired optimization. It shows more effective than genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and ant colony optimization (ACO). However, ABC is good at exploration but poor at exploitation, and its convergence speed is also an issue in some cases. For these insufficiencies, we propose an improved ABC algorithm called I-ABC. In I-ABC, the best-so-far solution, inertia weight and acceleration coefficients are introduced to modify the search process. Inertia weight and acceleration coefficients are defined as functions of the fitness. In addition, to further balance search processes, the modification forms of the employed bees and the onlooker ones are different in the second acceleration coefficient. Experiments show that, for most functions, the I-ABC has a faster convergence speed and better performances than each of ABC and the gbest-guided ABC (GABC). But I-ABC could not still substantially achieve the best solution for all optimization problems. In a few cases, it could not find better results than ABC or GABC. In order to inherit the bright sides of ABC, GABC and I-ABC, a high-efficiency hybrid ABC algorithm, which is called PS-ABC, is proposed. PS-ABC owns the abilities of prediction and selection. Results show that PS-ABC has a faster convergence speed like I-ABC and better search ability than other relevant methods for almost all functions.     

基于渗透式人工蜂群与蚁群优化混合的负载平衡算法

针对当前云计算负载平衡调度过程中出现的虚拟机迁移效率低和能耗高问题,提出了一种基于渗透式人工蜂群与蚁群混合优化负载平衡算法,该算法将化学渗透行为与生物启发的负载平衡算法相结合,在充分利用人工蜂群和蚁群两种优化算法优点的同时,将渗透技术应用于负载均衡。由于渗透技术支持通过云基础设施迁移的虚拟机的自动部署,从而克服了现有仿生算法在实现物理机之间负载平衡方面的缺点,提高了迁移效率。实验结果表明,以现有负载平衡算法相比,提出的算法在迁移性能上提升明显。     

An adaptive color image watermarking using RDWT-SVD and artificial bee colony based quality metric strength factor optimization

Image watermarking has emerged as a useful method for solving security issues like authenticity, copyright protection and rightful ownership of digital data. Existing watermarking schemes use either a binary or grayscale image as a watermark. This paper proposes a new robust and adaptive watermarking scheme in which both the host and watermark are the color images of the same size and dimension. The security of the proposed watermarking scheme is enhanced by scrambling both color host and watermark images using Arnold chaotic map. The host image is decomposed by redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT) into four sub-bands of the same dimension, and then approximate sub-band undergoes singular value decomposition (SVD) to obtain the principal component (PC). The scrambled watermark is then directly inserted into a principal component of scrambled host image, using an artificial bee colony optimized adaptive multi-scaling factor, obtained by considering both the host and watermark image perceptual quality to overcome the tradeoff between imperceptibility and robustness of the watermarked image. The hybridization of RDWT-SVD provides an advantage of no shift-invariant to achieve higher embedding capacity in the host image and preserving the imperceptibility and robustness by exploiting SVD properties. To measure the imperceptibility and robustness of the proposed scheme, both qualitative and quantitative evaluation parameters like peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index metric (SSIM) and normalized cross-correlation (NC) are used. Experiments are performed against several image processing attacks and the results are analyzed and compared with other related existing watermarking schemes which clearly depict the usefulness of the proposed scheme. At the same time, the proposed scheme overcomes the major security problem of false positive error (FPE) that mostly occurs in existing SVD based watermarking schemes.     

A dynamic multi-colony artificial bee colony algorithm for multi-objective optimization

This paper suggests a dynamic multi-colony multi-objective artificial bee colony algorithm (DMCMOABC) by using the multi-deme model and a dynamic information exchange strategy. In the proposed algorithm, K colonies search independently most of the time and share information occasionally. In each colony, there are S bees containing equal number of employed bees and onlooker bees. For each food source, the employed or onlooker bee will explore a temporary position generated by using neighboring information, and the better one determined by a greedy selection strategy is kept for the next iterations. The external archive is employed to store non-dominated solutions found during the search process, and the diversity over the archived individuals is maintained by using crowding-distance strategy. If a randomly generated number is smaller than the migration rate R, then an elite, defined as the intermediate individual with the maximum crowding-distance value, is identified and used to replace the worst food source in a randomly selected colony. The proposed DMCMOABC is evaluated on a set of unconstrained/constrained test functions taken from the CEC2009 special session and competition in terms of four commonly used metrics EPSILON, HV, IGD and SPREAD, and it is compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms by applying Friedman test on the mean of IGD. The test results show that DMCMOABC is significantly better than or at least comparable to its competitors for both unconstrained and constrained problems.     

一种基于主动轮廓模型的蚁群图像分割算法

通过对主动轮廓模型进行图像分割的过程研究发现,其多阶段决策问题与蚁群算法的决策过程非常相似．文中根据主动轮廓模型的特点构建了一类新的蚁群求解算法,把图像分割问题转化成最优路径的搜索问题,为获取精确的图像轮廓提供了新方法．证明了该方法以概率1收敛到最优解,即可以在能量函数的约束下找到最好的边界．本方法还可以推广到其他主动轮廓模型的图像分割问题中．仿真结果表明,本文提出的分割方法比文献中的遗传算法更为有效．     

一种求解高维约束优化问题的人工蜂群算法*

针对求解高维约束优化中算法的收敛速度和解的精度不高的缺点,提出一种改进的人工蜂群约束优化算法。该算法在初始化种群和侦察蜂探寻新蜜源时采用了正交实验设计方法,并在采蜜蜂搜索时使用了改进的高斯分布估计,跟随蜂按照采蜜蜂的适应值大小选择一个采蜜蜂,在其蜜源领域内采用差异算法搜索新的蜜源;在处理约束条件时采用自适应优劣解比较方法。最后通过13个标准的Benchmark测试函数进行仿真实验,结果表明该算法在处理高维约束优化问题时具有较好的收敛性和稳定性。     

A hybrid multi-objective tour route optimization algorithm based on particle swarm optimization and artificial bee colony optimization

Computational intelligence techniques have widespread applications in the field of engineering process optimization, which typically comprises of multiple conflicting objectives. An efficient hybrid algorithm for solving multi-objective optimization, based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony optimization (ABCO) has been proposed in this paper. The novelty of this algorithm lies in allocating random initial solutions to the scout bees in the ABCO phase which are subsequently optimized in the PSO phase with respect to the velocity vector. The last phase involves loyalty decision-making for the uncommitted bees based on the waggle dance phase of ABCO. This procedure continues for multiple generations yielding optimum results. The algorithm is applied to a real life problem of intercity route optimization comprising of conflicting objectives like minimization of travel cost, maximization of the number of tourist spots visited and minimization of the deviation from desired tour duration. Solutions have been obtained using both pareto optimality and the classical weighted sum technique. The proposed algorithm, when compared analytically and graphically with the existing ABCO algorithm, has displayed consistently better performance for fitness values as well as for standard benchmark functions and performance metrics for convergence and coverage.     

Rosenbrock artificial bee colony algorithm for accurate global optimization of numerical functions

A Rosenbrock artificial bee colony algorithm (RABC) that combines Rosenbrock’s rotational direction method with an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) is proposed for accurate numerical optimization. There are two alternative phases of RABC: the exploration phase realized by ABC and the exploitation phase completed by the rotational direction method. The proposed algorithm was tested on a comprehensive set of complex benchmark problems, encompassing a wide range of dimensionality, and it was also compared with several algorithms. Numerical results show that the new algorithm is promising in terms of convergence speed, success rate, and accuracy. The proposed RABC is also capable of keeping up with the direction changes in the problems.     

Improved artificial bee colony algorithm for global optimization

The artificial bee colony algorithm is a relatively new optimization technique. This paper presents an improved artificial bee colony (IABC) algorithm for global optimization. Inspired by differential evolution (DE) and introducing a parameter M, we propose two improved solution search equations, namely “ABC/best/1” and “ABC/rand/1”. Then, in order to take advantage of them and avoid the shortages of them, we use a selective probability p to control the frequency of introducing “ABC/rand/1” and “ABC/best/1” and get a new search mechanism. In addition, to enhance the global convergence speed, when producing the initial population, both the chaotic systems and the opposition-based learning method are employed. Experiments are conducted on a suite of unimodal/multimodal benchmark functions. The results demonstrate the good performance of the IABC algorithm in solving complex numerical optimization problems when compared with thirteen recent algorithms.