Metaformer: A Transformer That Tends to Mine Metaphorical-Level Information.

Since introducing the Transformer model, it has dramatically influenced various fields of machine learning. The field of time series prediction has also been significantly impacted, where Transformer family models have flourished, and many variants have been differentiated. These Transformer models mainly use attention mechanisms to implement feature extraction and multi-head attention mechanisms to enhance the strength of feature extraction. However, multi-head attention is essentially a simple superposition of the same attention, so they do not guarantee that the model can capture different features. Conversely, multi-head attention mechanisms may lead to much information redundancy and computational resource waste. In order to ensure that the Transformer can capture information from multiple perspectives and increase the diversity of its captured features, this paper proposes a hierarchical attention mechanism, for the first time, to improve the shortcomings of insufficient information diversity captured by the traditional multi-head attention mechanisms and the lack of information interaction among the heads. Additionally, global feature aggregation using graph networks is used to mitigate inductive bias. Finally, we conducted experiments on four benchmark datasets, and the experimental results show that the proposed model can outperform the baseline model in several metrics.

Multi-UAV Path Planning Algorithm Based on BINN-HHO.

Multi-UAV (multiple unmanned aerial vehicles) flying in three-dimensional (3D) mountain environments suffer from low stability, long-planned path, and low dynamic obstacle avoidance efficiency. Spurred by these constraints, this paper proposes a multi-UAV path planning algorithm that consists of a bioinspired neural network and improved Harris hawks optimization with a periodic energy decline regulation mechanism (BINN-HHO) to solve the multi-UAV path planning problem in a 3D space. Specifically, in the procession of global path planning, an energy cycle decline mechanism is introduced into HHO and embed it into the energy function, which balances the algorithm's multi-round dynamic iteration between global exploration and local search. Additionally, when the onboard sensors detect a dynamic obstacle during the flight, the improved BINN algorithm conducts a local path replanning for dynamic obstacle avoidance. Once the dynamic obstacles in the sensor detection area disappear, the local path planning is completed, and the UAV returns to the trajectory determined by the global planning. The simulation results show that the proposed Harris hawks algorithm has apparent superiorities in path planning and dynamic obstacle avoidance efficiency compared with the basic Harris hawks optimization, particle swarm optimization (PSO), and the sparrow search algorithm (SSA).

UAV Path Planning Algorithm Based on Improved Harris Hawks Optimization.

In the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system, finding a flight planning path with low cost and fast search speed is an important problem. However, in the complex three-dimensional (3D) flight environment, the planning effect of many algorithms is not ideal. In order to improve its performance, this paper proposes a UAV path planning algorithm based on improved Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO). A 3D mission space model and a flight path cost function are first established to transform the path planning problem into a multidimensional function optimization problem. HHO is then improved for path planning, where the Cauchy mutation strategy and adaptive weight are introduced in the exploration process in order to increase the population diversity, expand the search space and improve the search ability. In addition, in order to reduce the possibility of falling into local extremum, the Sine-cosine Algorithm (SCA) is used and its oscillation characteristics are considered to gradually converge to the optimal solution. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm has high optimization accuracy, convergence speed and robustness, and it can generate a more optimized path planning result for UAVs.

Optimal Performance and Application for Seagull Optimization Algorithm Using a Hybrid Strategy.

This paper aims to present a novel hybrid algorithm named SPSOA to address problems of low search capability and easy to fall into local optimization of seagull optimization algorithm. Firstly, the Sobol sequence in the low-discrepancy sequences is used to initialize the seagull population to enhance the population's diversity and ergodicity. Then, inspired by the sigmoid function, a new parameter is designed to strengthen the ability of the algorithm to coordinate early exploration and late development. Finally, the particle swarm optimization learning strategy is introduced into the seagull position updating method to improve the ability of the algorithm to jump out of local optimization. Through the simulation comparison with other algorithms on 12 benchmark test functions from different angles, the experimental results show that SPSOA is superior to other algorithms in stability, convergence accuracy, and speed. In engineering applications, SPSOA is applied to blind source separation of mixed images. The experimental results show that SPSOA can successfully realize the blind source separation of noisy mixed images and achieve higher separation performance than the compared algorithms.

Blind Source Separation Based on Double-Mutant Butterfly Optimization Algorithm.

The conventional blind source separation independent component analysis method has the problem of low-separation performance. In addition, the basic butterfly optimization algorithm has the problem of insufficient search capability. In order to solve the above problems, an independent component analysis method based on the double-mutant butterfly optimization algorithm (DMBOA) is proposed in this paper. The proposed method employs the kurtosis of the signal as the objective function. By optimizing the objective function, blind source separation of the signals is realized. Based on the original butterfly optimization algorithm, DMBOA introduces dynamic transformation probability and population reconstruction mechanisms to coordinate global and local search, and when the optimization stagnates, the population is reconstructed to increase diversity and avoid falling into local optimization. The differential evolution operator is introduced to mutate at the global position update, and the sine cosine operator is introduced to mutate at the local position update, hence, enhancing the local search capability of the algorithm. To begin, 12 classical benchmark test problems were selected to evaluate the effectiveness of DMBOA. The results reveal that DMBOA outperformed the other benchmark algorithms. Following that, DMBOA was utilized for the blind source separation of mixed image and speech signals. The simulation results show that the DMBOA can realize the blind source separation of an observed signal successfully and achieve higher separation performance than the compared algorithms.

Chloroplast Genomic Resource of Paris for Species Discrimination.

Paris is famous in China for its medicinal value and has been included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Inaccurate identification of these species could confound their effective exploration, conservation, and domestication. Due to the plasticity of the morphological characteristics, correct identification among Paris species remains problematic. In this regard, we report the complete chloroplast genome of P. thibetica and P. rugosa to develop highly variable molecular markers. Comparing three chloroplast genomes, we sought out the most variable regions to develop the best cpDNA barcodes for Paris. The size of Paris chloroplast genome ranged from 162,708 to 163,200 bp. A total of 134 genes comprising 81 protein coding genes, 45 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes were observed in all three chloroplast genomes. Eight rapidly evolving regions were detected, as well as the difference of simple sequence repeats (SSR) and repeat sequence. Two regions of the coding gene ycf1, ycf1a and ycf1b, evolved the quickest and were proposed as core barcodes for Paris. The complete chloroplast genome sequences provide more integrated and adequate information for better understanding the phylogenetic pattern and improving efficient discrimination during species identification.