Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-12T20:22:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LEANDERSON ANDRE.pdf: 2236080 bytes, checksum: a52e91a8b1a8e6a12497786254e94344 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Nature offers a wide range of phenomena that inspire the development of new technologies. The researchers from the area of Natural Computing abstracts the concept of optimization from various biological processes such as the evolution of species, the behavior of social groups, the search for food, among others. Such computer systems that have a similarity to natural biological systems are called biologically plausible. The development of biologically plausible algorithms gets interesting by the fact that biological systems are able to handle extremely complex problems. In this way, symbiotic relationships are one of several phenomena that can be observed in nature. These relationships consist of interactions that organisms carry out with each other resulting in benefit or disadvantage to those involved. In an optimization context, symbiotic relationships can be used to perform exchange of information between populations of candidate solutions to a given problem. Thus, this work highlights the concepts involving symbiotic relationships that may be important for the development of computer systems to solve complex problems. The main discussion presented in this study refers to the use of symbiotic relationships between populations of candidate solutions co-evolving in an ecological context. According to the analogy, populations interact with each other according to a specific symbiotic relationship in order to evolve their solutions. The proposed model is applied to several continuous benchmark functions with a high number of dimensions (D = 200) and in several benchmark instances of the multiple knapsack problem. The results obtained so far were promising concerning the application of symbiotic relationships. Finally, the conclusions are presented and some future directions for research are suggested. / A Natureza apresenta uma grande variedade de fenômenos que inspiram o desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias. Os pesquisadores da área de Computação Natural abstraem o conceito de otimização de vários processos biológicos, tais como a evolução das espécies, comportamento de grupos sociais, busca por comida, dentre outros. Tais sistemas computacionais que apresentam uma semelhança com os sistemas biológicos naturais são chamados de biologicamente plausíveis. O desenvolvimento de algoritmos biologicamente plausíveis se torna interessante pelo fato de que os sistemas biológicos são capazes de lidar com problemas extremamente complexos. As relações simbióticas são um dos vários fenômenos que podem ser observados na natureza. Essas relações consistem de interações que organismos realizam entre si resultando em benefícios ou prejuízos para os envolvidos. Em um contexto de otimização, as relações simbióticas podem ser utilizadas para realizar a troca de informação entre populações de soluções candidatas para um dado problema. Desta forma, este trabalho destaca os conceitos que envolvem as relações simbióticas que podem ser importantes para o desenvolvimento de sistemas computacionais para a resolução de problemas complexos. A principal discussão apresentada nesse trabalho refere-se a utilização de relações simbióticas entre populações de soluções candidatas, coevoluindo em um contexto ecológico. Com essa analogia, cada população interage com uma outra de acordo com uma relação simbiótica específica, com o objetivo de evoluir suas soluções. O modelo apresentado é aplicado a várias funções benchmark contínuas com um número alto de dimensões (D = 200) e várias instâncias benchmark do problema da mochila múltipla. Os resultados obtidos se mostraram promissores considerando a aplicação das relações simbióticas. Por fim, as conclusões são apresentadas e algumas direções para pesquisas futuras são sugeridas.

Most optimisation problems in everyday life are not static in nature, have multiple objectives and at least two of the objectives are in conflict with one another. However, most research focusses on either static multi-objective optimisation (MOO) or dynamic singleobjective optimisation (DSOO). Furthermore, most research on dynamic multi-objective optimisation (DMOO) focusses on evolutionary algorithms (EAs) and only a few particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithms exist. This thesis proposes a multi-swarm PSO algorithm, dynamic Vector Evaluated Particle Swarm Optimisation (DVEPSO), to solve dynamic multi-objective optimisation problems (DMOOPs). In order to determine whether an algorithm solves DMOO efficiently, functions are required that resembles real world DMOOPs, called benchmark functions, as well as functions that quantify the performance of the algorithm, called performance measures. However, one major problem in the field of DMOO is a lack of standard benchmark functions and performance measures. To address this problem, an overview is provided from the current literature and shortcomings of current DMOO benchmark functions and performance measures are discussed. In addition, new DMOOPs are introduced to address the identified shortcomings of current benchmark functions. Guides guide the optimisation process of DVEPSO. Therefore, various guide update approaches are investigated. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis of DVEPSO is conducted to determine the influence of various parameters on the performance of DVEPSO. The investigated parameters include approaches to manage boundary constraint violations, approaches to share knowledge between the sub-swarms and responses to changes in the environment that are applied to either the particles of the sub-swarms or the non-dominated solutions stored in the archive. From these experiments the best DVEPSO configuration is determined and compared against four state-of-the-art DMOO algorithms. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Background: In computer science, optimization can be defined as finding the most cost-effective or notable achievable performance under certain circumstances, maximizing desired factors, and minimizing undesirable results. Many problems in the real world are continuous, and it isn't easy to find global solutions. However, computer technological development increases the speed of computations [1]. The optimization method, an efficient numerical simulator, and a realistic depiction of physical operations that we intend to describe and optimize for any optimization issue are all interconnected components of the optimization process [2]. Objectives: A literature review on existing optimization algorithms is performed. Ten different benchmark functions are considered and are implemented on the existing chosen algorithms like GA (Genetic Algorithm), ACO (Ant ColonyOptimization) Method, and Plant Intelligence Behaviour optimization algorithm to measure the efficiency of these approaches based on the factors or metrics like CPU Time, Optimality, Accuracy, and Mean Best Standard Deviation. Methods: In this research work, a mixed-method approach is used. A literature review is performed based on the existing optimization algorithms. On the other hand, an experiment is conducted by using ten different benchmark functions with the current optimization algorithms like PSO algorithm, ACO algorithm, GA, and PIBO to measure their efficiency based on the four different factors like CPU Time, Optimality, Accuracy, Mean Best Standard Deviation. This tells us which optimization algorithms perform better. Results: The experiment findings are represented within this section. Using the standard functions on the suggested method and other methods, the various metrics like CPU Time, Optimality, Accuracy, and Mean Best Standard Deviation are considered, and the results are tabulated. Graphs are made using the data obtained. Analysis and Discussion: The research questions are addressed based on the experiment's results that have been conducted. Conclusion: We finally conclude the research by analyzing the existing optimization methods and the algorithms' performance. The PIBO performs much better and can be depicted from the results of the optimal metrics, best mean, standard deviation, and accuracy, and has a significant drawback of CPU Time where its time taken is much higher when compared to the PSO algorithm and almost close to GA and performs much better than ACO algorithm.

This research presents a Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization with Bat Algorithm (HPSOBA) based approach to solve Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch (ORPD) problem. The primary objective of this project is minimization of the active power transmission losses by optimally setting the control variables within their limits and at the same time making sure that the equality and inequality constraints are not violated. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Bat Algorithm (BA) algorithms which are nature-inspired algorithms have become potential options to solving very difficult optimization problems like ORPD. Although PSO requires high computational time, it converges quickly; while BA requires less computational time and has the ability of switching automatically from exploration to exploitation when the optimality is imminent. This research integrated the respective advantages of PSO and BA algorithms to form a hybrid tool denoted as HPSOBA algorithm. HPSOBA combines the fast convergence ability of PSO with the less computation time ability of BA algorithm to get a better optimal solution by incorporating the BA’s frequency into the PSO velocity equation in order to control the pace. The HPSOBA, PSO and BA algorithms were implemented using MATLAB programming language and tested on three (3) benchmark test functions (Griewank, Rastrigin and Schwefel) and on IEEE 30- and 118-bus test systems to solve for ORPD without DG unit. A modified IEEE 30-bus test system was further used to validate the proposed hybrid algorithm to solve for optimal placement of DG unit for active power transmission line loss minimization. By comparison, HPSOBA algorithm results proved to be superior to those of the PSO and BA methods. In order to check if there will be a further improvement on the performance of the HPSOBA, the HPSOBA was further modified by embedding three new modifications to form a modified Hybrid approach denoted as MHPSOBA. This MHPSOBA was validated using IEEE 30-bus test system to solve ORPD problem and the results show that the HPSOBA algorithm outperforms the modified version (MHPSOBA). / Electrical and Mining Engineering / M. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)