Hybrid Sooty Tern Optimization and Differential Evolution for Feature Selection

In this paper,a hybrid model based on sooty tern optimization algo-rithm(STOA)is proposed to optimize the parameters of the support vector machine(SVM)and identify the best feature sets simultaneously.Feature selec-tion is an essential process of data preprocessing,and it aims to find the most rele-vant subset of features.In recent years,it has been applied in many practical domains of intelligent systems.The application of SVM in many fields has proved its effectiveness in classification tasks of various types.Its performance is mainly determined by the kernel type and its parameters.One of the most challenging process in machine learning is feature selection,intending to select effective and representative features.The main disadvantages of feature selection processes included in classical optimization algorithm are local optimal stagnation and slow convergence.Therefore,the hybrid model proposed in this paper merges the STOA and differential evolution(DE)to improve the search efficiency and con-vergence rate.A series of experiments are conducted on 12 datasets from the UCI repository to comprehensively and objectively evaluate the performance of the proposed method.The superiority of the proposed method is illustrated from dif-ferent aspects,such as the classification accuracy,convergence performance,reduced feature dimensionality,standard deviation(STD),and computation time.

Trichomeriaceae, a new sooty mould family of Chaetothyriales

Trichomerium is a genus of foliar epiphytes with the appearance of sooty moulds,mostly occurring on the surface of living leaves and apparently gaining their nutrients from insect exudates.Species have ascostromata with setae and develop on a loosely interwoven mycelial mass of dark brown hyphae,while asci have a bitunicate appearance with hyaline ascospores.In this study,we made 16 collections of Trichomerium from Thailand.All were isolated,and the LSU and ITS rDNA gene regions sequenced.Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the Trichomerium species form a monophyletic clade within Chaetothyriales and warrant the introduction of a new family Trichomeriaceae.Bootstrap support for the Chaetothyriales is 100%and clearly separates Trichomeriaceae from Capnodiales which are morphologically very similar.A detailed account of Trichomerium is provided and we describe and illustrate three new species based on morphological and molecular data.We propose that T.foliicola is adopted as the generic type of Trichomerium because it has been impossible to obtain the holotype specimen of T.coffeicola and also no molecular data exists in worldwide databases for this species or genus.

Incidence evaluation of <i>Crypticerya multicicatrices</i>and <i>Maconellicoccus hirsutus</i>in Colombian Seaflower Biosphere Reserve

An evaluation of the incidence of Crypticerya multicicatrices and Maconellicoccus hirsutus in Colombian Seaflower Biosphere Reserve in San Andrés, Providence and Santa Catalina islands, from mid-August to mid-November 2012 was made. 38 locations were sampled, and 34% of sites tested show an incidence of C. multicicatrices oscillating between a range of 80%-100%, 24% with 40%-80% of incidence, 18% between 10%-40% and 24% with a range of 0%-10%. The occurrence of M. hirsutus fluctuated between 0.5% and 17%. There were seven genera of ants associated C. multicicatrices and 94 hosts of this agriculturally important insect and we found high incidence of associated sooty mold in C. multicicatrices hosts. Observations also contained some developmental stages of C. multicatrices.

First record of Capnodium berberidis from India

Capnodium berberidis,a sooty mould fungus,previously reported only from Pakistan in 1978,was recently observed on Berberis lycium in Jot Pass,district Chamba of Himachal Pradesh,India.Berberis lycium is a well-known small to medium sized spiny,woody,deciduous or evergreen medicinal and ornamental plant distributed throughout temperate and subtropical regions of the world.Disease symptoms appeared as thin,black to dark brown,easily removed superficial layer of hyphae on various parts of host plant including leaves,stem,twigs and fruits.The detailed studies on its morphology and taxonomy revealed it a sooty mould fungus Capnodium berberidis.As per literature consulted,this is the first report of Capnodium berberidis from India and probably second from world.