Project description:This work considers the Bi-objective Traveling Salesman Problem (BTSP), where two conflicting objectives, the travel time and monetary cost between cities, are minimized. Our purpose is to compute the trade-off solutions that fulfill the problem requirements. We introduce a novel three-Phase Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm (3PHEA) based on the Lin-Kernighan Heuristic, an improved version of the Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm, and Pareto Variable Neighborhood Search, a multi-objective version of VNS. We conduct a comparative study with three existing approaches dedicated to solving BTSP. To assess the performance of algorithms, we consider 20 BTSP instances from the literature of varying degrees of difficulty (e.g., euclidean, random, mixed, etc.) and different sizes ranging from 100 to 1000 cities. We also compute several multi-objective performance indicators, including running time, coverage, hypervolume, epsilon, generational distance, inverted generational distance, spread, and generalized spread. Experimental results and comparative analysis indicate that the proposed three-phase method 3PHEA is significantly superior to existing approaches covering up to 80% of the true Pareto fronts.
Project description:As one of the essential topological structures in complex networks, community structure has significant theoretical and application value and has attracted the attention of researchers in many fields. In a social network, individuals may belong to different communities simultaneously, such as a workgroup and a hobby group. Therefore, overlapping community discovery can help us understand and model the network structure of these multiple relationships more accurately. This article proposes a two-stage multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for overlapping community discovery problem. First, using the initialization method to divide the central node based on node degree, combined with the cross-mutation evolution strategy of the genome matrix, the first stage of non-overlapping community division is completed on the decomposition-based multi-objective optimization framework. Then, based on the result set of the first stage, appropriate nodes are selected from each individual's community as the central node of the initial population in the second stage, and the fuzzy threshold is optimized through the fuzzy clustering method based on evolutionary calculation and the feedback model, to find reasonable overlapping nodes. Finally, tests are conducted on synthetic datasets and real datasets. The statistical results demonstrate that compared with other representative algorithms, this algorithm performs optimally on test instances and has better results.
Project description:The design and construction of network structures oriented towards different applications has attracted much attention recently. The existing studies indicated that structural heterogeneity plays different roles in promoting cooperation and robustness. Compared with rewiring a predefined network, it is more flexible and practical to construct new networks that satisfy the desired properties. Therefore, in this paper, we study a method for constructing robust cooperative networks where the only constraint is that the number of nodes and links is predefined. We model this network construction problem as a multi-objective optimization problem and propose a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, named MOEA-Netrc, to generate the desired networks from arbitrary initializations. The performance of MOEA-Netrc is validated on several synthetic and real-world networks. The results show that MOEA-Netrc can construct balanced candidates and is insensitive to the initializations. MOEA-Netrc can find the Pareto fronts for networks with different levels of cooperation and robustness. In addition, further investigation of the robustness of the constructed networks revealed the impact on other aspects of robustness during the construction process.
Project description:In recent years, researchers have taken the many-objective optimization algorithm, which can optimize 5, 8, 10, 15, 20 objective functions simultaneously, as a new research topic. However, the current research on many-objective optimization technology also encounters some challenges. For example: Pareto resistance phenomenon, difficult diversity maintenance. Based on the above problems, this paper proposes a many-objective evolutionary algorithm based on three states (MOEA/TS). Firstly, a feature extraction operator is proposed. It can extract the features of the high-quality solution set, and then assist the evolution of the current individual. Secondly, based on Pareto front layer, the concept of "individual importance degree" is proposed. The importance degree of an individual can reflect the importance of the individual in the same Pareto front layer, so as to further distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of different individuals in the same front layer. Then, a repulsion field method is proposed. The diversity of the population in the objective space is maintained by the repulsion field, so that the population can be evenly distributed on the real Pareto front. Finally, a new concurrent algorithm framework is designed. In the algorithm framework, the algorithm is divided into three states, and each state focuses on a specific task. The population can switch freely among these three states according to its own evolution. The MOEA/TS algorithm is compared with 7 advanced many-objective optimization algorithms. The experimental results show that the MOEA/TS algorithm is more competitive in many-objective optimization problems.
Project description:The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) was envisioned as an assistive technology option for people with severe movement impairments. The traditional synchronous event-related potential (ERP) BCI design uses a fixed communication speed and is vulnerable to variations in attention. Recent ERP BCI designs have added asynchronous features, including abstention and dynamic stopping, but it remains a open question of how to evaluate asynchronous BCI performance. In this work, we build on the BCI-Utility metric to create the first evaluation metric with special consideration of the asynchronous features of self-paced BCIs. This metric considers accuracy as all of the following three - probability of a correct selection when a selection was intended, probability of making a selection when a selection was intended, and probability of an abstention when an abstention was intended. Further, it considers the average time required for a selection when using dynamic stopping and the proportion of intended selections versus abstentions. We establish the validity of the derived metric via extensive simulations, and illustrate and discuss its practical usage on real-world BCI data. We describe the relative contribution of different inputs with plots of BCI-Utility curves under different parameter settings. Generally, the BCI-Utility metric increases as any of the accuracy values increase and decreases as the expected time for an intended selection increases. Furthermore, in many situations, we find shortening the expected time of an intended selection is the most effective way to improve the BCI-Utility, which necessitates the advancement of asynchronous BCI systems capable of accurate abstention and dynamic stopping.
Project description:The article proposes an optimization algorithm using a hierarchical environment selection strategyto solve the deficiencies of current multimodal multi-objective optimization algorithms in obtaining the completeness and convergence of Pareto optimal Sets (PSs). Firstly, the algorithm in this article is framed by a differential evolutionary algorithm (DE) and uses a special crowding distance to design a neighborhood-based individual variation strategy, which also ensures the diversity, and then special crowding distance is used to help populations with non-dominated sorting. In the stage of environmental selection, a strategy of hierarchical selection of individuals was designed, which selects sorted non-dominant ranked individual layer by layer according to the ratio, which allows potential individuals tobe explored. Finally, in the stage of evolution of individuals, the convergence and diversity of populations were investigated, anddifferent mutation strategies were selectedaccording to the characteristics of individuals. DE reproduction strategies are used for iteration, preventing individuals from avoiding premature convergence and ensuring the algorithm's searchability. These strategies help the algorithm to obtain more diverse and uniformly distributed PSs and Pareto Front (PF). The algorithm of this article compares with several other excellent algorithms on 13 test problems, and the test results show that all the algorithms of this article exhibit superior performance.
Project description:Brain signals represent a communication modality that can allow users of assistive robots to specify high-level goals, such as the object to fetch and deliver. In this paper, we consider a screen-free Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), where the robot highlights candidate objects in the environment using a laser pointer, and the user goal is decoded from the evoked responses in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Having the robot present stimuli in the environment allows for more direct commands than traditional BCIs that require the use of graphical user interfaces. Yet bypassing a screen entails less control over stimulus appearances. In realistic environments, this leads to heterogeneous brain responses for dissimilar objects-posing a challenge for reliable EEG classification. We model object instances as subclasses to train specialized classifiers in the Riemannian tangent space, each of which is regularized by incorporating data from other objects. In multiple experiments with a total of 19 healthy participants, we show that our approach not only increases classification performance but is also robust to both heterogeneous and homogeneous objects. While especially useful in the case of a screen-free BCI, our approach can naturally be applied to other experimental paradigms with potential subclass structure.
Project description:ImportanceThe current assessment of visual field loss in diseases such as glaucoma is affected by the subjectivity of patient responses and the lack of portability of standard perimeters.ObjectiveTo describe the development and initial validation of a portable brain-computer interface (BCI) for objectively assessing visual function loss.Design, setting, and participantsThis case-control study involved 62 eyes of 33 patients with glaucoma and 30 eyes of 17 healthy participants. Glaucoma was diagnosed based on a masked grading of optic disc stereophotographs. All participants underwent testing with a BCI device and standard automated perimetry (SAP) within 3 months. The BCI device integrates wearable, wireless, dry electroencephalogram and electrooculogram systems and a cellphone-based head-mounted display to enable the detection of multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials associated with visual field stimulation. The performances of global and sectoral multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials metrics to discriminate glaucomatous from healthy eyes were compared with global and sectoral SAP parameters. The repeatability of the BCI device measurements was assessed by collecting results of repeated testing in 20 eyes of 10 participants with glaucoma for 3 sessions of measurements separated by weekly intervals.Main outcomes and measuresReceiver operating characteristic curves summarizing diagnostic accuracy. Intraclass correlation coefficients and coefficients of variation for assessing repeatability.ResultsAmong the 33 participants with glaucoma, 19 (58%) were white, 12 (36%) were black, and 2 (6%) were Asian, while among the 17 participants with healthy eyes, 9 (53%) were white, 8 (47%) were black, and none were Asian. The receiver operating characteristic curve area for the global BCI multifocal steady state visual-evoked potentials parameter was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.86-0.96), which was larger than for SAP mean deviation (area under the curve, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.72-0.90), SAP mean sensitivity (area under the curve, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.69-0.88; P = .03), and SAP pattern standard deviation (area under the curve, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.66-0.87; P = .01). No statistically significant differences were seen for the sectoral measurements between the BCI and SAP. Intraclass coefficients for global and sectoral parameters ranged from 0.74 to 0.92, and mean coefficients of variation ranged from 3.03% to 7.45%.Conclusions and relevanceThe BCI device may be useful for assessing the electrical brain responses associated with visual field stimulation. The device discriminated eyes with glaucomatous neuropathy from healthy eyes in a clinically based setting. Further studies should investigate the feasibility of the BCI device for home-based testing as well as for detecting visual function loss over time.
Project description:The most BCI systems that rely on EEG signals employ Fourier based methods for time-frequency decomposition for feature extraction. The band-limited multiple Fourier linear combiner is well-suited for such band-limited signals due to its real-time applicability. Despite the improved performance of these techniques in two channel settings, its application in multiple-channel EEG is not straightforward and challenging. As more channels are available, a spatial filter will be required to eliminate the noise and preserve the required useful information. Moreover, multiple-channel EEG also adds the high dimensionality to the frequency feature space. Feature selection will be required to stabilize the performance of the classifier. In this paper, we develop a new method based on Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) to solve these two problems simultaneously. The real-valued EA encodes both the spatial filter estimates and the feature selection into its solution and optimizes it with respect to the classification error. Three Fourier based designs are tested in this paper. Our results show that the combination of Fourier based method with covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy (CMA-ES) has the best overall performance.
Project description:BackgroundStudies on genome-wide associations help to determine the cause of many genetic diseases. Genome-wide associations typically focus on associations between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Genotyping every SNP in a chromosomal region for identifying genetic variation is computationally very expensive. A representative subset of SNPs, called tag SNPs, can be used to identify genetic variation. Small tag SNPs save the computation time of genotyping platform, however, there could be missing data or genotyping errors in small tag SNPs. This study aims to solve Tag SNPs selection problem using many-objective evolutionary algorithms.MethodsTag SNPs selection can be viewed as an optimization problem with some trade-offs between objectives, e.g. minimizing the number of tag SNPs and maximizing tolerance for missing data. In this study, the tag SNPs selection problem is formulated as a many-objective problem. Nondominated Sorting based Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-III), and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm based on Decomposition (MOEA/D), which are Many-Objective evolutionary algorithms, have been applied and investigated for optimal tag SNPs selection. This study also investigates different initialization methods like greedy and random initialization. optimization.ResultsThe evaluation measures used for comparing results for different algorithms are Hypervolume, Range, SumMin, MinSum, Tolerance rate, and Average Hamming distance. Overall MOEA/D algorithm gives superior results as compared to other algorithms in most cases. NSGA-III outperforms NSGA-II and other compared algorithms on maximum tolerance rate, and SPEA2 outperforms all algorithms on average hamming distance.ConclusionExperimental results show that the performance of our proposed many-objective algorithms is much superior as compared to the results of existing methods. The outcomes show the advantages of greedy initialization over random initialization using NSGA-III, SPEA2, and MOEA/D to solve the tag SNPs selection as many-objective optimization problem.