Feature selection is a crucial method for discovering relevant features in high‐dimensional data. However, most studies primarily focus on completely labeled data, ignoring the frequent occurrence of missing labels in real‐world problems. To address high‐dimensional and label‐missing problems in data classification simultaneously, we proposed a semisupervised bacterial heuristic feature selection algorithm. To track the label‐missing problem, a k ‐nearest neighbor semisupervised learning strategy is designed to reconstruct missing labels. In addition, the bacterial heuristic algorithm is improved using hierarchical population initialization, dynamic learning, and elite population evolution strategies to enhance the search capacity for various feature combinations. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, three groups of comparison experiments based on eight datasets are employed, including two traditional feature selection methods, four bacterial heuristic feature selection algorithms, and two swarm‐based heuristic feature selection algorithms. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has obvious advantages in terms of classification accuracy and selected feature numbers.

Recommender systems assist users to make decisions among a huge volume of options. Accuracy-oriented recommender systems focus on the prediction power of algorithms and neglect that users may appreciate diverse and novel recommendations in real-world scenarios. Thus, this paper proposed a multicriteria recommendation model that can optimize the recommendation accuracy, diversity, novelty, and individual tendency simultaneously. Additionally, a new multiobjective bacterial foraging optimization method is proposed to improve its searching capability and the performance of recommendation model. The proposed optimization-based multicriteria recommendation algorithm is compared with existing methods on both benchmark functions and real-world data sets. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is superior to other recommendation algorithms in most cases. This study provides insights in recommendation system design and draws scholarly attention to the optimization-based recommendation strategy.

This study proposes a general multiple parameter control framework by leveraging the ability of a reinforcement learning system to learn empirical knowledge for evolutionary computation. We design a feedback evaluation mechanism to define the rewards offered to agents, using which they can learn to choose appropriate parameters in formulated action sets. Moreover, a learning strategy is proposed to utilize the parameter selection-related knowledge that is gained during training episodes. Three famous evolutionary computation (EC) methods (i.e., particle swarm optimization, artificial bee colony, and differential evolution) are selected as the baseline algorithms and applied to the proposed framework. The aforementioned redesigned algorithms are tested on 15 common benchmark functions, as well as the CEC2017 benchmarks. In addition, the robustness of the algorithms is demonstrated through parameter sensitivity analysis. The results of the comparative analysis reveal that the three improved algorithms exhibit a faster overall convergence and higher accuracy than their state-of-the-art variants. It is also confirmed that our proposed framework has the capability to improve the performance of EC approach.

Bacterial foraging optimization (BFO) has been exploited for function optimization, owing to its innovative ideas gleaned from the microbiological system. This paper first discusses its three crucial limitations: high computational cost, difficulty in parameter settings, and premature convergence. To alleviate the above problems, simplified BFO with quorum sensing (QS) is proposed. First, a novel computational framework is provided to reduce the computational complexity, leading to a simplified version. Second, the concept of “QS,” bacterial reciprocal behavior, is integrated into the simplified version by utilizing a new position updating equation coupled with a dynamic communication topology. Each bacterium adjusts its search trajectory based on both biased random walk and promising search directions provided by its communicatees. The communicatees are selected via a dynamic communication topology, where a rank-based communication strategy and two information mutation schemes are used for global exploration of the search space. Finally, a parameter automation strategy is introduced to promote the exploitation of promising regions. Further, the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are empirically confirmed on 30 benchmark functions, by comparing it with the four variants of BFO and four other advanced algorithms.