Submit to Entropy Review for Entropy Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Related Special Issues
Published Papers

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Multidisciplinary Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 31402

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Diego Oliva

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Departamento de Innovación Basada en la Información y el Conocimiento, Universidad de Guadalajara, CUCEI, Guadalajara 44430, Mexico
Interests: metaheuristic algorithms; bioinspired computation; image processing; machine learning; optimization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Salvador Miguel Hinojosa Cervantes

E-Mail
Guest Editor

Depto. de Ciencias Computacionales, Universidad de Guadalajara, CUCEI, Av. Revolución 1500, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Interests: image processing; bioinspired computation; multi-objective optimization; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soft computing and machine learning algorithms are used in different fields of science and technology. They are important tools designed to solve complex real-life problems under uncertainty.

Entropy is a powerful tool that has changed the analysis of information. The use of entropy has been extended in soft computing and machine learning methodologies, from measuring uncertainty to exploring and exploiting search spaces in optimization. Different kinds of entropy are used depending on what is required. Moreover, it is necessary to use soft computing and machine learning methods to provide accurate solutions to complex problems in the information era. Hybrid algorithms are also important; they merge skills from different approaches and make decisions based on different rules to accurately explore the possible solutions.

Since the fields of soft computing and machine algorithms are constantly growing, following all the different branches in which entropy is used is complicated. Considering the above, this Special Issue aims to present the latest advances in soft computing and machine learning algorithms that employ or solve problems where entropy is included. It also seeks to include literature reviews and surveys on related topics.

Dr. Diego Oliva
Dr. Salvador Miguel Hinojosa Cervantes
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Metaheuristics
Bioinspired algorithms
Cross entropy
Shannon entropy
Fuzzy entropy
Machine learning
Neural networks
Swarm optimization
Evolutionary computation
Fuzzy logic
Genetic algorithms
Deep learning

Related Special Issues

Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms II in Entropy (11 articles)
Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms III in Entropy

Published Papers (10 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

19 pages, 2133 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Analysis and Architecture of a Clustering Hybrid Algorithm Called FA+GA-DBSCAN Using Artificial Datasets

by Juan Carlos Perafan-Lopez, Valeria Lucía Ferrer-Gregory, César Nieto-Londoño and Julián Sierra-Pérez

Entropy 2022, 24(7), 875; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e24070875 - 25 Jun 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1556

Abstract

Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) is a widely used algorithm for exploratory clustering applications. Despite the DBSCAN algorithm being considered an unsupervised pattern recognition method, it has two parameters that must be tuned prior to the clustering process in order to reduce uncertainties, the minimum number of points in a clustering segmentation MinPts, and the radii around selected points from a specific dataset Eps. This article presents the performance of a clustering hybrid algorithm for automatically grouping datasets into a two-dimensional space using the well-known algorithm DBSCAN. Here, the function nearest neighbor and a genetic algorithm were used for the automation of parameters MinPts and Eps. Furthermore, the Factor Analysis (FA) method was defined for pre-processing through a dimensionality reduction of high-dimensional datasets with dimensions greater than two. Finally, the performance of the clustering algorithm called FA+GA-DBSCAN was evaluated using artificial datasets. In addition, the precision and Entropy of the clustering hybrid algorithm were measured, which showed there was less probability of error in clustering the most condensed datasets. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 5644 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Metaheuristic Algorithms Based on Compromise Programming for the Multi-Objective Urban Shipment Problem

by Tung Son Ngo, Jafreezal Jaafar, Izzatdin Abdul Aziz, Muhammad Umar Aftab, Hoang Giang Nguyen and Ngoc Anh Bui

Entropy 2022, 24(3), 388; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e24030388 - 09 Mar 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2291

Abstract

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) and its variants are found in many fields, especially logistics. In this study, we introduced an adaptive method to a complex VRP. It combines multi-objective optimization and several forms of VRPs with practical requirements for an urban shipment system. The optimizer needs to consider terrain and traffic conditions. The proposed model also considers customers’ expectations and shipper considerations as goals, and a common goal such as transportation cost. We offered compromise programming to approach the multi-objective problem by decomposing the original multi-objective problem into a minimized distance-based problem. We designed a hybrid version of the genetic algorithm with the local search algorithm to solve the proposed problem. We evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with the Tabu Search algorithm and the original genetic algorithm on the tested dataset. The results show that our method is an effective decision-making tool for the multi-objective VRP and an effective solver for the new variation of VRP. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

28 pages, 1468 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Grouping Differential Evolution Algorithm Boosted by Attraction and Repulsion Strategies for Masi Entropy-Based Multi-Level Image Segmentation

by Seyed Jalaleddin Mousavirad, Davood Zabihzadeh, Diego Oliva, Marco Perez-Cisneros and Gerald Schaefer

Entropy 2022, 24(1), 8; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e24010008 - 21 Dec 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2690

Abstract

Masi entropy is a popular criterion employed for identifying appropriate threshold values in image thresholding. However, with an increasing number of thresholds, the efficiency of Masi entropy-based multi-level thresholding algorithms becomes problematic. To overcome this, we propose a novel differential evolution (DE) algorithm as an effective population-based metaheuristic for Masi entropy-based multi-level image thresholding. Our ME-GDEAR algorithm benefits from a grouping strategy to enhance the efficacy of the algorithm for which a clustering algorithm is used to partition the current population. Then, an updating strategy is introduced to include the obtained clusters in the current population. We further improve the algorithm using attraction (towards the best individual) and repulsion (from random individuals) strategies. Extensive experiments on a set of benchmark images convincingly show ME-GDEAR to give excellent image thresholding performance, outperforming other metaheuristics in 37 out of 48 cases based on cost function evaluation, 26 of 48 cases based on feature similarity index, and 20 of 32 cases based on Dice similarity. The obtained results demonstrate that population-based metaheuristics can be successfully applied to entropy-based image thresholding and that strengthening both exploitation and exploration strategies, as performed in ME-GDEAR, is crucial for designing such an algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

37 pages, 901 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Belief and Possibility Belief Interval-Valued N-Soft Set and Their Applications in Multi-Attribute Decision-Making Problems

by Shahbaz Ali, Muneeba Kousar, Qin Xin, Dragan Pamučar, Muhammad Shazib Hameed and Rabia Fayyaz

Entropy 2021, 23(11), 1498; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e23111498 - 13 Nov 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 1650

Abstract

In this research article, we motivate and introduce the concept of possibility belief interval-valued N-soft sets. It has a great significance for enhancing the performance of decision-making procedures in many theories of uncertainty. The N-soft set theory is arising as an effective mathematical tool for dealing with precision and uncertainties more than the soft set theory. In this regard, we extend the concept of belief interval-valued soft set to possibility belief interval-valued N-soft set (by accumulating possibility and belief interval with N-soft set), and we also explain its practical calculations. To this objective, we defined related theoretical notions, for example, belief interval-valued N-soft set, possibility belief interval-valued N-soft set, their algebraic operations, and examined some of their fundamental properties. Furthermore, we developed two algorithms by using max-AND and min-OR operations of possibility belief interval-valued N-soft set for decision-making problems and also justify its applicability with numerical examples. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 6115 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Nighttime Vehicle Detection Method with Attentive GAN for Accurate Classification and Regression

by Yan Liu, Tiantian Qiu, Jingwen Wang and Wenting Qi

Entropy 2021, 23(11), 1490; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e23111490 - 11 Nov 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2364

Abstract

Vehicle detection plays a vital role in the design of Automatic Driving System (ADS), which has achieved remarkable improvements in recent years. However, vehicle detection in night scenes still has considerable challenges for the reason that the vehicle features are not obvious and are easily affected by complex road lighting or lights from vehicles. In this paper, a high-accuracy vehicle detection algorithm is proposed to detect vehicles in night scenes. Firstly, an improved Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), named Attentive GAN, is used to enhance the vehicle features of nighttime images. Then, with the purpose of achieving a higher detection accuracy, a multiple local regression is employed in the regression branch, which predicts multiple bounding box offsets. An improved Region of Interest (RoI) pooling method is used to get distinguishing features in a classification branch based on Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (R-CNN). Cross entropy loss is introduced to improve the accuracy of classification branch. The proposed method is examined with the proposed dataset, which is composed of the selected nighttime images from BDD-100k dataset (Berkeley Diverse Driving Database, including 100,000 images). Compared with a series of state-of-the-art detectors, the experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively contribute to vehicle detection accuracy in nighttime. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

17 pages, 3961 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Boosting COVID-19 Image Classification Using MobileNetV3 and Aquila Optimizer Algorithm

by Mohamed Abd Elaziz, Abdelghani Dahou, Naser A. Alsaleh, Ammar H. Elsheikh, Amal I. Saba and Mahmoud Ahmadein

Entropy 2021, 23(11), 1383; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e23111383 - 22 Oct 2021

Cited by 66 | Viewed by 5507

Abstract

Currently, the world is still facing a COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) classified as a highly infectious disease due to its rapid spreading. The shortage of X-ray machines may lead to critical situations and delay the diagnosis results, increasing the number of deaths. Therefore, the exploitation of deep learning (DL) and optimization algorithms can be advantageous in early diagnosis and COVID-19 detection. In this paper, we propose a framework for COVID-19 images classification using hybridization of DL and swarm-based algorithms. The MobileNetV3 is used as a backbone feature extraction to learn and extract relevant image representations as a DL model. As a swarm-based algorithm, the Aquila Optimizer (Aqu) is used as a feature selector to reduce the dimensionality of the image representations and improve the classification accuracy using only the most essential selected features. To validate the proposed framework, two datasets with X-ray and CT COVID-19 images are used. The obtained results from the experiments show a good performance of the proposed framework in terms of classification accuracy and dimensionality reduction during the feature extraction and selection phases. The Aqu feature selection algorithm achieves accuracy better than other methods in terms of performance metrics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 2729 KiB

Open AccessArticle

F-Divergences and Cost Function Locality in Generative Modelling with Quantum Circuits

by Chiara Leadbeater, Louis Sharrock, Brian Coyle and Marcello Benedetti

Entropy 2021, 23(10), 1281; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e23101281 - 30 Sep 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2749

Abstract

Generative modelling is an important unsupervised task in machine learning. In this work, we study a hybrid quantum-classical approach to this task, based on the use of a quantum circuit born machine. In particular, we consider training a quantum circuit born machine using f-divergences. We first discuss the adversarial framework for generative modelling, which enables the estimation of any f-divergence in the near term. Based on this capability, we introduce two heuristics which demonstrably improve the training of the born machine. The first is based on f-divergence switching during training. The second introduces locality to the divergence, a strategy which has proved important in similar applications in terms of mitigating barren plateaus. Finally, we discuss the long-term implications of quantum devices for computing f-divergences, including algorithms which provide quadratic speedups to their estimation. In particular, we generalise existing algorithms for estimating the Kullback–Leibler divergence and the total variation distance to obtain a fault-tolerant quantum algorithm for estimating another f-divergence, namely, the Pearson divergence. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 1524 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Electric Fish-Based Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm for Feature Selection

by Rehab Ali Ibrahim, Laith Abualigah, Ahmed A. Ewees, Mohammed A. A. Al-qaness, Dalia Yousri, Samah Alshathri and Mohamed Abd Elaziz

Entropy 2021, 23(9), 1189; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e23091189 - 09 Sep 2021

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 3300

Abstract

With the widespread use of intelligent information systems, a massive amount of data with lots of irrelevant, noisy, and redundant features are collected; moreover, many features should be handled. Therefore, introducing an efficient feature selection (FS) approach becomes a challenging aim. In the recent decade, various artificial methods and swarm models inspired by biological and social systems have been proposed to solve different problems, including FS. Thus, in this paper, an innovative approach is proposed based on a hybrid integration between two intelligent algorithms, Electric fish optimization (EFO) and the arithmetic optimization algorithm (AOA), to boost the exploration stage of EFO to process the high dimensional FS problems with a remarkable convergence speed. The proposed EFOAOA is examined with eighteen datasets for different real-life applications. The EFOAOA results are compared with a set of recent state-of-the-art optimizers using a set of statistical metrics and the Friedman test. The comparisons show the positive impact of integrating the AOA operator in the EFO, as the proposed EFOAOA can identify the most important features with high accuracy and efficiency. Compared to the other FS methods whereas, it got the lowest features number and the highest accuracy in 50% and 67% of the datasets, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 452 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Metaheuristics in the Optimization of Cryptographic Boolean Functions

by Isaac López-López, Guillermo Sosa-Gómez, Carlos Segura, Diego Oliva and Omar Rojas

Entropy 2020, 22(9), 1052; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e22091052 - 21 Sep 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3007

Abstract

Generating Boolean Functions (BFs) with high nonlinearity is a complex task that is usually addresses through algebraic constructions. Metaheuristics have also been applied extensively to this task. However, metaheuristics have not been able to attain so good results as the algebraic techniques. This paper proposes a novel diversity-aware metaheuristic that is able to excel. This proposal includes the design of a novel cost function that combines several information from the Walsh Hadamard Transform (WHT) and a replacement strategy that promotes a gradual change from exploration to exploitation as well as the formation of clusters of solutions with the aim of allowing intensification steps at each iteration. The combination of a high entropy in the population and a lower entropy inside clusters allows a proper balance between exploration and exploitation. This is the first memetic algorithm that is able to generate 10-variable BFs of similar quality than algebraic methods. Experimental results and comparisons provide evidence of the high performance of the proposed optimization mechanism for the generation of high quality BFs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 8071 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multi-Level Image Thresholding Based on Modified Spherical Search Optimizer and Fuzzy Entropy

by Husein S Naji Alwerfali, Mohammed A. A. Al-qaness, Mohamed Abd Elaziz, Ahmed A. Ewees, Diego Oliva and Songfeng Lu

Entropy 2020, 22(3), 328; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/e22030328 - 12 Mar 2020

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 3795

Abstract

Multi-level thresholding is one of the effective segmentation methods that have been applied in many applications. Traditional methods face challenges in determining the suitable threshold values; therefore, metaheuristic (MH) methods have been adopted to solve these challenges. In general, MH methods had been proposed by simulating natural behaviors of swarm ecosystems, such as birds, animals, and others. The current study proposes an alternative multi-level thresholding method based on a new MH method, a modified spherical search optimizer (SSO). This was performed by using the operators of the sine cosine algorithm (SCA) to enhance the exploitation ability of the SSO. Moreover, Fuzzy entropy is applied as the main fitness function to evaluate the quality of each solution inside the population of the proposed SSOSCA since Fuzzy entropy has established its performance in literature. Several images from the well-known Berkeley dataset were used to test and evaluate the proposed method. The evaluation outcomes approved that SSOSCA showed better performance than several existing methods according to different image segmentation measures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Entropy in Soft Computing and Machine Learning Algorithms)

► Show Figures