A BPSO-SVM algorithm based on memory renewal and enhanced mutation mechanisms for feature selection

Feature selection (FS) is an essential component of data mining and machine learning. Most researchers devoted to get more effective method with high accuracy and fewer features, it has become one of the most challenging problems in FS. Certainly, some algorithms have been proven to be effectively, such as binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO), genetic algorithm (GA) and support vector machine (SVM). BPSO is a metaheuristic algorithm having been widely applied to various fields and applications successfully, including FS. As a wrapper method of FS, BPSO-SVM tends to be trapped into premature easily. In this paper, we present a novel mutation enhanced BPSO-SVM algorithm by adjusting the memory of local and global optimum (LGO) and increasing the particles' mutation probability for feature selection to overcome convergence premature problem and achieve high quality features. Typical simulated experimental results carried out on Sonar, LSVT and DLBCL datasets indicated that the proposed algorithm improved the accuracy and decreased the number of feature subsets, comparing with existing modified BPSO algorithms and GA. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.