International Journal of Computational Intelligence Research (IJCIR)

Volume 2, Issue 4

Regular Papers in Press


A Hybrid Evolutionary Approach to Maximum Weight Clique Problem

Alok Singh and Ashok Kumar Gupta

J. K. Institute of Applied Physics and Technology,
Faculty of Science, University of Allahabad,
Allahabad – 211002, India


Abstract:
In this paper, we propose a hybrid evolutionary approach combining steady-state genetic algorithm and a greedy heuristic for the maximum weight clique problem. The genetic algorithm generates cliques that are then extended into maximum weight clique by the heuristic. Tests on a variety of benchmark problem instances demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
 


Hierarchical Two-Population Genetic Algorithm

Jarno Martikainen and Seppo J. Ovaska

Helsinki University of Technology, Institute of Intelligent Power Electronics
P. O. Box 3000, 02015 HUT, Finland

Abstract: This paper proposes a new hierarchical two-population genetic algorithm (2PGA). The 2PGA scheme constitutes of two differently sized populations containing individuals of similar fitness or cost function values. The smaller population, the elite population, consists of the best individuals, whereas the larger population contains less fit individuals. These populations have different characteristics, such as size and mutation probability, based on the fitness of the candidate solutions in these populations. The performance of our 2PGA is compared to that of a single population genetic algorithm (SPGA). Because the 2PGA has multiple parameters, the significance and the effect of the parameters is also studied. Experimental results show that the 2PGA outperforms the SPGA reliably without increasing the amount of fitness function evaluations. Although genetic algorithms are used as a platform for the 2PGA scheme, the principles presented here are applicable also to other population based evolutionary optimization methods.


Heuristic Methods for Automatic Rotating Workforce Scheduling

Nysret Musliu


Vienna University of Technology
Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Wien, Austria

Abstract: Rotating workforce scheduling appears in different forms in a broad range of workplaces, such as industrial plants, call centers, public transportation, and airline companies. It is of a high practical relevance to find workforce schedules that fulfill the ergonomic criteria of the employees, and reduce costs for the organization. In this paper we propose new heuristic methods for automatic generation of rotating workforce schedules. To improve the quality of each heuristic method alone, we further propose the hybridization of these methods. The following methods are proposed: (1)A Tabu Search (TS) based algorithm, (2) A heuristic method based on min-conflicts heuristic (MC), (3) A method that includes in the tabu search algorithm the min-conflicts heuristic (TS-MC) and random walk (TS-RW), (4) A method that includes in the min-conflicts heuristic the tabu mechanism (MC-T), random walk (MC-RW), and both the tabu mechanism and the random walk (MC-T-RW). The appropriate neighborhood structure, tabu mechanism, and fitness function, based on the specifics of the problem are proposed. The proposed methods are implemented and experimentally evaluated on the benchmark examples given in the literature and on the real life test problems, which we collected from a broad range of organizations. Empirical results show that the combination of the min-conflicts heuristic with tabu search can be used to solve this problem very effectively. The hybrid methods improve the performance of the commercial system for generation of rotating workforce schedules and are currently in the process of being included in a commercial package for automatic generation of rotating workforce schedules.


A Multiple Neural Network System to Classify Solder Joints on Integrated Circuits
 

G. Acciani, G. Brunetti and G. Fornarelli


Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica ed Elettronica,
Via E. Orabona 4, Bari 70125, Italy

Abstract: The following paper introduces a diagnostic process to detect solder joint defects on Printed Circuit Boards assembled in Surface Mounting Technology. The diagnosis is accomplished by a Neural Network System which processes the images of the solder joints of the integrated circuits mounted on the board. The board images are acquired and then preprocessed to extract the regions of interest for the diagnosis which are the solder joints of the integrated circuits. Five different levels of solder quality in respect to the amount of solder paste have been defined. Two feature vectors have been extracted from each region of interest, the “geometric” feature vector and the “wavelet” feature vector. Both vectors feed the neural network system constituted by two Multi Layer Perceptron neural networks and a Linear Vector Quantization network for the classification. The experimental results are devoted to comparing the performances of a Multi Layer Perceptron network, of a Linear Vector Quantization network, and of the overall neural network system, considering both geometric and wavelet features. The results prove that the overall classifier is the best compromise in terms of recognition rate and time required for the diagnosis in respect to the single classifiers.

 


Mathematical Analysis of the Heuristic Optimisation Mechanism of Evolutionary Programming

Libao Shi1,2, Zhao Yang Dong1, Jin Hao3 and Kit Po Wong4

1 School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072 Australia
2National key laboratory of power systems in Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Tsinghua Campus, The University Town, Shenzhen, 518055
3 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
4 Department of Electrical engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Abstract: Evolutionary algorithms are robust and adaptive. They have found a wide variety of applications solving optimisation and search problems. As one of the main stream algorithms in evolutionary computation evolutionary programming (EP) mainly uses real values of parameters. This makes it very attractive for many engineering optimisation applications. In addition to the evolutionary characteristics more in depth dynamic optimisation mechanisms of EP is investigated in this paper. An optimisation model based on differential equations is developed to explore and exploit the inherent optimal operation process of EP. The proposed model is based on the characteristics of population evolution and uses two performance measures, (i) Population On-line Performance measure and (ii) Population Off-line Performance measure. These two measures are used to quantify the dynamic population optimisation of EP and to form the foundation for the construction of the differential equation based optimisation model. The model is proposed with strict theoretical and numerical analysis. A number of important conclusions and observations are presented in accordance with the analytical results.
 


Nonlinear Image Enhancement to Improve Face Detection in Complex Lighting Environment

Li Tao, Ming-Jung Seow and Vijayan K. Asari

Computational Intelligence and Machine Vision Laboratory
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529

Abstract: A robust and efficient image enhancement technique has been developed to improve the visual quality of digital images that exhibit dark shadows due to the limited dynamic ranges of imaging and display devices which are incapable of handling high dynamic range scenes. The proposed technique processes images in two separate steps: dynamic range compression and local contrast enhancement. Dynamic range compression is a neighborhood dependent intensity transformation which is able to enhance the luminance in dark shadows while keeping the overall tonality consistent with that of the input image. The image visibility can be largely and properly improved without creating unnatural rendition in this manner. A neighborhood dependent local contrast enhancement method is used to enhance the images contrast following the dynamic range compression. Experimental results on the proposed image enhancement technique demonstrates strong capability to improve the performance of convolutional face finder compared to histogram equalization and multiscale Retinex with color restoration without compromising the false alarm rate.
 


 


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