An Improved Elite Slime Mould Algorithm for Engineering Design

The Swarm intelligence algorithm is a very prevalent field in which some scholars have made outstanding achievements.As a representative,Slime mould algorithm(SMA)is widely used because of its superior initial performance.Therefore,this paper focuses on the improvement of the SMA and the mitigation of its stagnation problems.For this aim,the structure of SMA is adjusted to develop the efficiency of the original method.As a stochastic optimizer,SMA mainly stimulates the behavior of slime mold in nature.For the harmony of the exploration and exploitation of SMA,the paper proposed an enhanced algorithm of SMA called ECSMA,in which two mechanisms are embedded into the structure:elite strategy,and chaotic stochastic strategy.The details of the original SMA and the two introduced strategies are given in this paper.Then,the advantages of the improved SMA through mechanism comparison,balance-diversity analysis,and contrasts with other counterparts are validated.The experimental results demonstrate that both mechanisms have a significant enhancing effect on SMA.Also,SMA is applied to four structural design issues of the welded beam design problem,PV design problem,I-beam design problem,and cantilever beam design problem with excellent results.

Restoration of hyper-eutrophic water with a modularized and air adjustable constructed submerged plant bed

A modularized and air adjustable constructed submerged plant bed(CSPB)which can be used to restore the eutrophic water is introduced in this paper.This plant bed helps hydrophyte grow under poor conditions such as frequently changed water depth,impaired water transparency,algae bloom and substantial duckweed in summer,which are not naturally suitable for growing hydrophyte.This pilot study in Waihuan River of Tianjin,China,revealed that reduction of Chemical Oxygen Demand(COD),Total Nitrogen(TN)and Total Phosphorus(TP)by the use of CSPB could be reached 30%-35%,35%-40%,30%-40%respectively in the growing season(from March to October)and 5%-10%,5%-15%,7%-20%respectively in the winter(from November to February)when the detention time was 6 d.The relationships between the concentration of COD,TN,TP and the detention time fit the first-order kinetic equation well and the coefficients of determination(R^(2))were all above 0.9.The attenuation coefficients k of the kinetic equation were a function of the water temperature.When the water temperature was quite low or quite high,k was not significantly changed with increasing or decreasing water temperature.While when the temperature was in a moderate range,an increase or decrease of water temperature would lead to a rapid increase or decrease in k.