Healthcare professionals usually should make complex decisions with far reaching consequences and associated risks in health care fields. As it was demonstrated in other industries, the ability to drill down into pertinent data to explore knowledge behind the data can greatly facilitate superior, informed decisions to ensue the facts. Nature has always inspired researchers to develop models of ...

In the present study, the computational performance of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) harmony search (HS) and firefly algorithm (FA), as popular metaheuristics, is investigated for size and shape optimization of truss structures. The PSO was inspired by the social behavior of organisms such as bird flocking. The HS imitates the musical performance process which takes place when a musicia...

Turing’s pioneer work in heuristic search has inspired many generations of research in heuristic algorithms. In the last two decades, metaheuristic algorithms have attracted strong attention in scientific communities with significant developments, especially in areas concerning swarm intelligence based algorithms. In this work, we will briefly review some of the important achievements in metahe...

Nature-inspired search algorithms have proved to be successful in solving real-world optimization problems. Firefly algorithm is a novel meta-heuristic algorithm which simulates the natural behavior of fireflies. In the present study, optimum design of truss structures with both sizing and geometry design variables is carried out using the firefly algorithm. Additionally, to improve the efficie...

Metaheuristics is basically a higher level procedure, which generates a simpler procedure to solve an optimization problem. Optimization is the process of adjusting the inputs to or characteristics of a device, mathematical process, or experiment to find the minimum or maximum output or result. The input consists of variables; the process or function is known as the cost function, objective fun...