Article

Binary Ebola Optimization Search Algorithm for Feature

Selection and Classification Problems
Olatunji Akinola, Olaide N. Oyelade and Absalom E. Ezugwu *

School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, King Edward Avenue,
Pietermaritzburg Campus, Pietermaritzburg 3201, NL, South Africa
* Correspondence: ezugwua@ukzn.ac.za

Abstract: In the past decade, the extraction of valuable information from online biomedical datasets
has exponentially increased due to the evolution of data processing devices and the utilization of
machine learning capabilities to find useful information in these datasets. However, these datasets
present a variety of features, dimensionalities, shapes, noise, and heterogeneity. As a result, deriv-
ing relevant information remains a problem, since multiple features bottleneck the classification
process. Despite their adaptability, current state-of-the-art classifiers have failed to address the
problem, giving rise to the exploration of binary optimization algorithms. This study proposes a
novel approach to binarizing the Ebola optimization search algorithm. The binary Ebola search op-
timization algorithm (BEOSA) uses two newly formulated S-shape and V-shape transfer functions
to investigate mutations of the infected population in the exploitation and exploration phases, re-
spectively. A model is designed to show a representation of the binary search space and the map-
ping of the algorithm from the continuous space to the discrete space. Mathematical models are
formulated to demonstrate the fitness and cost functions used for evaluating the algorithm. Using
22 benchmark datasets consisting of low, medium and high dimensional data, we exhaustively ex-
perimented with the proposed BEOSA method and six other recent similar feature selection meth-
Citation: Akinola, O.; Oyelade, O.N.; ods. The experimental results show that the BEOSA and its variant BIEOSA were highly competitive
Ezugwu, A.E. Binary Ebola with different state-of-the-art binary optimization algorithms. A comparative analysis of the classi-
Optimization Search Algorithm for fication accuracy obtained for eight binary optimizers showed that BEOSA performed competi-
Feature Selection and Classification tively compared to other methods on nine datasets. Evaluation reports on all methods revealed that
Problems. Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787. BEOSA was the top performer, obtaining the best values on eight datasets and eight fitness and cost
https://doi.org/10.3390/app12221178 functions. Computation for the average number of features selected showed that BEOSA outper-
7
formed other methods on 11 datasets when population sizes of 75 and 100 were used. Findings from
Academic Editor: Xianpeng Wang the study revealed that BEOSA is effective in handling the challenge of feature selection in high-
dimensional datasets.
Received: 20 October 2022
Accepted: 17 November 2022
Keywords: feature selection; transfer function; binary optimization; EOSA; binary Ebola search al-
Published: 19 November 2022
gorithm; BEOSA
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1. Introduction
Machine learning and data mining are fast-growing topics in research and industry
because of the massive amount of data being generated which needs to be converted into
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Li- usable information. This conversion process plays an essential part in the process of
censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. knowledge discovery, as it comprises a set of repetitive task sequences including the
This article is an open access article transformation, reduction, cleansing, and integration of data, among others [1]. These
distributed under the terms and con- steps are known as pre-processing; their outcome directly impacts the machine learning
ditions of the Creative Commons At- and data mining algorithm performance. Due to its importance, data is regarded as the
tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre- “currency” of the present decade. This makes the correct handling of data a necessity.
ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). With the increase in data and the growth of machine learning and data mining, the

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787. https://doi.org/10.3390/app122211787 www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 2 of 46

processing of data is becoming more and more tedious. The increase in dimensionality
means that training machine learning and data mining algorithms takes longer, making
them more computationally expensive. Researchers have developed different methods to
address the problem of dimensionality. One such method is feature selection, which re-
moves the presence of noisy data such as unnecessary or useless features that do not assist
with the purpose of classification [2].
Feature selection is a pre-processing stage which assists in selecting valuable features
and separating them from a set of unwanted ones, thereby improving the performance of
the classifiers. This method eradicates redundant, irrelevant features, thereby reducing
time complexity [3]. Feature selection is generally performed in two ways, namely, wrap-
per and filter methods [4]. The wrapper method utilizes learning algorithm(s) to choose
the subsets of features. This method produces better performance but is more computa-
tionally expensive than the filter method. The feature selection under the wrapper tech-
nique is referred to as an optimization problem [5]. The filter-based technique does not
depend on a learning algorithm; rather, it chooses useful features by utilizing information
gain, mutual information etc. [6]. This method is computationally inexpensive but does
not produce as good a performance as the wrapper-based techniques. Finding the relevant
subset of features is a challenging task, as the main aim is to select the minimum number
of features and get the maximum accuracy possible. Due to the increased time required to
locate the optimal subset of features, feature selection is referred to as an NP-hard problem
[7]. Should we have an 𝑁 feature, the sum of 2 − 1 of the number of the combination
of features is needed to investigate and locate the best features [8]. The need for a high-
performing metaheuristic to take care of this type of problem is important to reduce the
processing time. The search processes of metaheuristics rely on the trade-off between the
exploitation (intensification)—that conducts a thorough neighborhood search to obtain
better possible solutions—and exploration (diversification)—that tests the solution of can-
didates not within the neighborhood. These two objectives are the factors that define the
ability to find optimal solution(s). Recently, feature selection as an optimization problem
has been solved using metaheuristic algorithms because they show better performance
than exact methods [8-13]. However, due to the no free lunch (NFL) theorem, which pro-
poses that no one algorithm is sufficient to solve all optimization problems, the need to
develop new or improve existing methods that can make high-quality solutions for the
candidate problem becomes unavoidable.
Despite the great effort and advancements in this area, most metaheuristic algo-
rithms have at least one deficiency or shortcoming. Examples of such limitations include
getting trapped in local optima, premature convergence, too many parameters to be tuned
and so on. The question which raises serious research opportunity is: does good perfor-
mance and the superiority demonstrated by a continuous variant of an optimization algo-
rithm translate into similar good performance when applied to solve binary optimization
problems? To answer this question, this paper presents a binary Ebola optimization search
algorithm (BEOSA) to solve the feature selection problem and to avoid some of these
drawbacks. The baseline EOSA is a recently proposed metaheuristic algorithm [14], a bio-
based algorithm inspired by the Ebola virus disease propagation model. The base algo-
rithm was evaluated on 47 classical benchmark functions and compared with seven well-
known techniques and 14 CEC benchmark functions, producing superior performance
over other methods in the study. This consideration and the selection of the EOSA method
as the base algorithm for the binary optimization method proposed in this study was mo-
tivated by the performance of the algorithm itself and even a recent outstanding report of
its immunity-based variant, namely, IEOSA. The performance of this biology-based algo-
rithm stood out among most of the state-of-the-art optimization methods with similar
sources of inspiration. Since the algorithm has proven relevant in addressing some very
difficult continuous optimization problems, we sought to determine whether its operators
and optimization process could find optimal solutions for binary optimization problems.
Hence, through an exhaustive and rigorous experimentation on several heterogeneous
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 3 of 46

and high-dimensional datasets, this study investigates the influence, impact and benefit
of designing and applying a binary variant of the EOSA/IEOSA methods. The perfor-
mance of this method was the motivation for this binarization, and since this method was
developed, it has not been utilized to solve the feature selection problem. Since the feature
selection problem is binary, we present a binary version of the EOSA to solve this prob-
lem. We also utilize the k-near neighbor (kNN) as the classifier to test the goodness of the
selected subset of features. The the major contributions of this work are as follows:
• Proposal of the binary version of the EOSA algorithm (called BEOSA) for feature se-
lection problems.
• Evaluation of the performance of BEOSA using a convergence curve and other com-
putational analysis metrics.
• Evaluation and validation of the proposed method with 22 small and medium size
and 3 high-dimensional datasets.
• The proposed method was assessed using seven classifiers to evaluate its perfor-
mance.
• A comparison is made of the efficacy of the BEOSA with some other popular feature
selection methods.
The remainder of this manuscript is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a review
of the relevant literature. Section 3 discusses the methodology used in this study. Section
4 details our proposed BEOSA approach and its application in feature selection. Section 5
centers on the results of the experiments and presents a discussion of this work. Section 6
provides the conclusion.

2. Related Work
A detailed review of related studies on the subject of the concept described in this
study is presented in this section. The literature shows that several binary metaheuristic
algorithms have been developed to solve the feature selection problem. The feature selec-
tion technique based on the wrapper approach uses the binary search capability of me-
taheuristic algorithms. Swarm- and evolutionary-based algorithms are becoming com-
monplace methods in the feature selection domain [15].
Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [16] is a bio-inspired metaheuristic method
which has attracted much attention due to its tested and trusted mathematical modelling.
This algorithm has been binarized and enhanced to solve problems in discrete search
spaces. A study by Unler and Murat [17], presented a modified discrete PSO that used the
logistic regression model and applied it to the feature selection domain. A year later,
Chuang et al. [18], proposed an improved BPSO that introduced the effect of catfish, called
“catfishBPSO”, for feature selection. The BPSO was also improved to tackle the optimiza-
tion problem of feature selection [19]. Ji et al. [13], proposed an improved PSO based on
the Levy flight local factor, a weighting inertia coefficient based on the global factor and
a factor of improvement based on the mechanism of mutation diversity, called (IPSO), to
tackle the feature selection problem. This improvement came with shortcomings, how-
ever, such as the inclusion of more parameters compared with other improved versions
of the PSO, which makes tuning difficult for various application problems and increases
computational time. Since every particle in BPSO moves closer to and farther from the
hypercube corner, its major shortcoming is stagnation.
The genetic algorithm (GA) is another popular bio-inspired feature selection method
which has been widely utilized as a wrapper-based technique. Huang and Wang [20],
proposed a GA-based method using the support vector machine (SVM) as a learning al-
gorithm to solve the feature selection problem. The major goal of their work was concur-
rent parameter and feature subset optimization without reducing the classification accu-
racy of the SVM. The method reduced the number of feature subsets and improved the
accuracy of classification but was outperformed by the Grid algorithm. Later, Nemati et
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 4 of 46

al. [21], presented a hybrid GA and ant colony optimizer (ACO) as a feature selection
method to predict protein functions. These two algorithms were combined to enable better
and faster capabilities with very low computational complexity. Furthermore, Jiang et al.
[22], proposed a modified GA (MGA), i.e., a feature selection method using a pre-trained
deep neural network (DNN) for the prediction of the demand for different patients’ key
resources in an outpatient department.
Apart from these two notable algorithms, several other nature-inspired methods
have been utilized to solve feature selection problems. The binary wrapper-based bat al-
gorithm was developed by Nakamura et al. in 2012 [23]. It uses the classifier optimum-
path forest to locate the feature sets that produce maximum classification accuracy.
Hancer et al. [24], proposed a binary artificial bee colony (ABC) that employed a similarity
search mechanism inspired by evolution to resolve the feature selection problem. Emary
et al. [11], proposed the binary ant lion optimizer (BALO) which utilizes the transfer func-
tion as a means of moving ant lions within a discrete search space. The binary grey wolf
optimizer with two techniques was proposed the following year to locate a subset of fea-
tures that cater for the two conflicting objectives of the feature selection problem, i.e., to
maximize the accuracy of the classification and minimize the number of selected features.
However, this method was plagued with premature convergence, despite its outperfor-
mance of other methods used for comparison in the study. Zhang et al. [25], designed a
variation of the binary firefly algorithm called return-cost-based FFA (Rc-FFA), which was
able to prevent premature convergence. A binary dragonfly optimizer was developed by
Mafarja et al. [26], which employed a time-varying transfer function that improved its
exploitation and exploration phases. However, its performance was not close to optimal.
Faris et al. [27], proposed two variants of the salp swarm algorithm (SSA) to solve the
feature selection problem. The first utilized eight transfer functions to convert a continu-
ous search space to a binary one, and the other introduced a crossover operator to improve
the exploration behavior of the SSA; however, the study did not provide an analysis of
the transfer functions. A binary grasshopper optimization algorithm (BGOA) was pro-
posed by Mafarja et al. [28], using the V-shaped transfer function and sigmoid. This study
incorporated the mutation operator to enhance the exploration phase of the BGOA. In
Mafarja and Mirjalili [29], two binary versions of the whale optimization algorithm were
proposed. The first utilized the effect of a roulette wheel and tournament mechanisms of
selection with a random operator in the process of searching, while the second version
employed the mutation and crossover mechanisms to enhance diversification. Kumar et
al. [30], proposed a binary seagull optimizer which employed four S- and V-shaped trans-
fer functions to binarize the baseline algorithm, applying it to solve the feature selection
problem. The reported results showed competitive performance with other methods; their
technique was also evaluated using high-dimensional datasets.
Elgin Christo et al. [31], and Murugesan et al. [32], designed bio-inspired metaheu-
ristics comprising three algorithms. The former combined glowworld swarm optimiza-
tion, lion optimization algorithm and differential evolution, while the latter hybridized
krill herd, cat swarm and bacteria foraging optimizers, with both using the Adda-
BoostSVM classifier as the fitness function and a backpropagation neural network to per-
form classification, which was applied to clinical diagnoses of diseases. The methods
showed superior performance over other methods. However, these proposed methods
were computationally expensive due to the use of combinations of different metaheuristic
methods. Balasubramanian and Ananthamoorthy [33], proposed a bio-inspired method
(salp swarm) with kernel-ELM as a classifier to diagnose glaucoma disease from medical
images. The results produced by this method showed superior performance over other
methods. However, the technique was not tested on collections of large, real-time datasets
because this proved to be more challenging. The different algorithms mentioned above
provided better solutions to many of the feature selection problems [34]. Many of these
methods, however, could not yield an optimal subset of features for datasets of high-di-
mensional magnitude. Additionally, the inference from the NFL theorem that no single
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 5 of 46

algorithm can solve all optimization problems holds in the feature selection domain as
well. Hence, a new binary method needs to be developed to solve the optimization prob-
lem of feature selection.
Some bio-inspired metaheuristic algorithms are based on susceptible infectious re-
covery (SIR), the class of models to which the EOSA algorithm belongs. Therefore, review-
ing some efforts made using this model in the literature is appropriate here. Some such
methods have been proposed to tackle the problem of detection and classification, among
which we may cite the SIR model [35]. This approach is based on sample paths and was
employed to detect the sources of information in a network. The assumption of that study
was that all nodes on the network were in their initial state and were susceptible, apart
from a source that was in a state of infection. The susceptible nodes could then become
infected by the infected node, which itself may have no longer been infected. The result of
this simulation revealed that the estimator that the reverse-infection algorithm produced
for the tree network was nearer to the real source. A further performance evaluation was
conducted on many real-world networks with good outcomes. However, the assumption
of a single source node only was the drawback of this model, since, in most real-world
scenarios, this is close to impossible. To overcome this problem, Zang et al. [36], utilized
a divide-and-conquer approach to find many sources in social networks using the SIR
model. The technique showed promising results with high accuracy of its estimations.
However, these methods have not been directly employed in the feature selection optimi-
zation problem.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in 2020, more SIR model-based methods
have been designed to detect or diagnose corona virus infection in humans. In Al-Betar et
al. [37], a new coronavirus herd immunity optimizer (CHIO) was proposed which drew
its inspiration from the concept of herd immunity and social distance strategy so as to
protect society from contracting the virus. The herd immunity employed three main kinds
of individuals: susceptible, infected and immunized; it was applied to solve engineering
optimization problem. This algorithm has since been utilized to solve feature selection
and classification problems, including the introduction of a novel COVID-19 diagnostic
strategy, known as patient detection strategy (CPDS) [38], that combined the wrapper and
filter methods for feature selection. The improved k-near neighbor (EKNN) was used for
the wrapper method using the chest CT images of COVID-19 infected and non-infected
patients. The results revealed the superiority of the proposed method over other, recently
developed ones in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, precision, and time of execution. Simi-
larly, the greedy search operator was incorporated with and without the CHIO to make
two wrapper-based methods, which were evaluated on 23 benchmark datasets and a real-
world COVID-19 dataset.
Some high-dimensional datasets have been employed to assess the efficacy of the
proposed methods. Alweshah [39], boosted the efficiency of the probabilistic neural net-
work (PNN) using CHIO to solve the classification problem. Eleven benchmark datasets
were used to assess the accuracy of classification of the proposed CHIO-PNN which, on
all the datasets used, produced a summative classification rate of 90.3% with a quicker
rate of convergence than other methods. However, the drawback of this method was its
use on low and medium rank datasets. As such, there is a concern that higher dimensional
datasets may negatively impact its performance.

3. Methodology
This section presents the methodology of the proposed binarization approach for the
EOSA algorithm. To achieve the design, an overview of the EOSA algorithm and its im-
munity-based variant is presented. This is followed by a description of the procedure for
the generation and binarization of the search space. The binary variant of EOSA is then
formulated and incorporated into the binary search space. The variant can use the pro-
posed transformation functions to map the continuous space to a discrete space. The clas-
sification models used to support the feature selection process are also discussed.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 6 of 46

3.1. Overview of EOSA and IEOSA

The EOSA metaheuristic [14] was inspired by the classical SIR model and the propa-
gation model of the Ebola virus. Drawing from the natural phenomena associated with
the development of immunity by individuals against virus strains and the potential cov-
erage an immune individual provides for a susceptible individual, a new variant was pro-
posed, named immunity-based variant (IEOSA). Both the base algorithm and the immun-
ity-based variant were exhaustively tested using continuous benchmark functions. The
obtained results confirmed their viability. We present a summary of the mathematical
models of the methods to support discussion of the techniques for the proposed BEOSA
and BIEOSA. The population initialization of EOSA and IEOSA is undertaken as shown
in Equations (1) and (2).

𝑖𝑛𝑑 = 𝐿 + 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 ∗ ( 𝑈 − 𝐿) (1)

𝑖𝑛𝑑 = 𝔤 ∗ 𝑖𝑛𝑑 ∗ (1 − 𝑖𝑛𝑑 ) (2)

where 𝔤 is a constant (3), 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 is a randomly generated real number, 𝐿 is the lower
bound and 𝑈 is the upper bound of the optimization problem. The mutation of infected
individuals in the continuous space is described by Equation (3), where ∆ is the change
factor of an individual and 𝑔𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 is a global best solution.
𝑖𝑛𝑑 = ∆∗𝑒 cos(2𝜋𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑) ∗ (𝑖𝑛𝑑 − 𝑔𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡) (3)
The calculations for the allocation of individuals to compartments I, R, D, H, V and
Q were detailed in [14, 40]. Considering the increasing demand for solving binary optimi-
zation problems and the outstanding performance reported by the EOSA method, the bi-
nary EOSA (BEOSA) is proposed in this study. In the following subsections, we include a
detailed discussion on the design of the algorithm for BEOSA and BIEOSA.

3.2. Binarization of Search Space

The BEOSA search space consists of individuals whose representations are of the bi-
nary search space form. The entire population represents individuals whose anatomies
are made up of binary digits. This representation is required to aid in the processes of
identification and differentiation of selected features from those which are not. Figure 1
presents an illustration of the entire search space for the BEOSA algorithm. First, the pop-
ulation of individuals in the search space is determined according to two parameters,
namely, population size 𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 and the dimension of dataset D. D is obtained by compu-
ting the number of features in dataset X, while 𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 is declared during the initialization
of the population. Following an iterative approach, each individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 in the popula-
tion is initialized to a value of 1 for the whole of D dimension in 𝑖𝑛𝑑 . It is expected that
the application of the BEOSA ⊕ operation on the search space will result in optimized
solutions whose internal representation will have been modified to values between 0 and
1 for the whole of the D dimension in 𝑖𝑛𝑑 .
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 7 of 46

Figure 1. Representation of the search space for all individuals in the population, with an illustration
of the binarization procedure of feature indicators for each individual.

The complete optimization process, which is expected to run for a number of itera-
tions, will yield output for each individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 , similar to what is shown in Figure 2. It is
assumed that cells whose values are 1 s are considered to translate into the features which
have been selected. Recall that the dimension of D for arbitrary solution 𝑖𝑛𝑑 is similar
to the number of features |𝐹| in the dataset of X. As a result, we simply count the number
of 1 s in the dimension of D for every 𝑖𝑛𝑑 which represents the instances in the dataset
X.

Figure 2. Identification of selected features as obtainable in every instance of the entire dataset.

The formalization of the search space is necessary to support the process of binariza-
tion of EOSA which is suitable for solving the problem of feature selection. In the follow-
ing subsection, we describe the composition of the proposed BEOSA method.

3.3. Binarization of EOSA (BEOSA)

The design of the new variant of EOSA which will be able to optimize solutions in a
discrete solution space applies some new operators to existing ones in the algorithm. The
first is the definition of transformation functions which can change the solution represen-
tation and optimization process from a continuous form to a discrete one. This is necessary
to allow the new method to process problems which are peculiar to feature selection. The
second operation modelled to achieve the new variant BEOSA is modifying the fitness
function. Evaluating the solutions to find the global best among all individuals requires
that the fitness of the solutions be computed. The definition of the fitness function is
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 8 of 46

presented to suit the problem domain. Furthermore, the design of the BEOSA algorithm
and a flowchart are presented and discussed.

3.3.1. Transformation of Method

We proposed four transformation functions to position infected individuals 𝑖𝑛𝑑 in
the discrete space. These functions follow the popular S-functions and V-functions cate-
gories, so that two functions are described for the latter and two for the former. Equations
(4) and (5) contain the S1 and S2 functions which belong to the S-transform function, while
Equations (6) and (7) contain the V1 and V2 functions which belong to the V-function
family.

1
𝑆1 = (4)
1 + 𝑒( )

1
𝑆2 = 1 − (5)
1+ 𝑒

𝑥
𝑉1 = (6)
√2 + 𝑥

𝑉2 = |tan 𝑥| (7)

In Figure 3, the behavior of the transform functions is plotted to show that they are
truly able to generate patterns similar to the class of function they belong to. For instance,
the (a) part of the figure shows that the two S-functions result in an S-shaped pattern when
the function is applied to values [−6, 6], while a V-shaped pattern is reported for the V-
functions when they are applied to the same values. Note that these functions confine
their output on the y-axis to values between [0, 1], which is the aim of using the transform
functions.

(a) (b)
Figure 3. Graphical chart of the values of (a) the 𝑆 transform function for both 𝑆1(𝑖𝑛𝑑 ) and
𝑆2 (𝑖𝑛𝑑 ), and of (b) the 𝑇 transform functions for both 𝑇1 (𝑖𝑛𝑑 ) and 𝑇2 (𝑖𝑛𝑑 ).

The aim of applying these transform functions is to ensure that they can help transfer
the composition of feature positions in an individual to either 0 or 1. Additionally, these
functions can increase the probability of changing the natural composition of that individ-
ual, so that they become a potential solution for solving feature selection problems. This
is illustrated using Equations (8) and (9). The first part of the two equations controls the
selection of either the S1 or S2 function when applying the S-function and the use of either
T1 or T2 when applying the V-function. A determinant factor is used to guide this deci-
sion, so that if 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑(0|1), the function generates 1, and the S2 or T2 function is called as
appropriate; otherwise, the S1 or T1 function is called. In the second part of the two
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 9 of 46

equations, the value of the 𝑘 position in the representation of individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 is modi-
fied to be 1 when 𝑟 > 𝑆 𝑖𝑛𝑑 for S-functions and 𝑟 > 𝑇 𝑖𝑛𝑑 for T-functions; other-
wise, 0 is assigned to the 𝑘 position whereby k lies between 0 ≤ 𝑘 < 𝐷, and 𝑟 is a ran-
domly generated between [0, 1].

𝑆2 𝑖𝑛𝑑 , 𝑇2 𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑(0|1) == 1

𝑆 𝑖𝑛𝑑 , 𝑇(𝑖𝑛𝑑 ) = (8)
𝑆1 𝑖𝑛𝑑 , 𝑇1 𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑(0|1) == 0

1 𝑟 > 𝑆 𝑖𝑛𝑑 | 𝑟 > 𝑇 𝑖𝑛𝑑

𝑖𝑛𝑑 = (9)
0 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝑠𝑒

A flowchart of the process of applying the transform functions to achieve the trans-
lation of the BEOSA from the continuous space to the discrete space is illustrated in Figure
4. The optimization process begins with a population described as the susceptible group.
Based on the natural phenomenon of the EOSA method, some individuals are exposed to
the virus, thereby leading to some of them being allocated to the infected subgroup. It is
these infected individuals that are optimized for a number of iterations. It is expected that
during the iteration, almost all the members of the susceptible subgroup will move to the
infected subgroup. For each 𝑖𝑛𝑑 in the 𝐼 subgroup, the 𝑘 position is mutated using
either of the S-functions or V-functions, depending on the satisfiability of the 𝑝𝑜𝑠(𝑖) <
𝑇𝐻𝑅𝐸𝑆𝐻𝑂𝐿𝐷 criteria. Note that the 𝑝𝑜𝑠(𝑖) function computes the current position and
displacement of individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 . A constant value of 0.5 was assumed for the
𝑇𝐻𝑅𝐸𝑆𝐻𝑂𝐿𝐷 parameter during experimentation. The satisfiability of this condition de-
termines whether the S-functions or the V-function will be applied. The final output of the
optimization process is in a vector of 0s and 1s, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Process flow using BEOSA and BIEOSA to search for the best individual in a discrete
search space.

The mutation of the values of the 𝑘 position in every 𝑖𝑛𝑑 in the 𝐼 subgroup and
the termination of the iterative condition will lead to the evaluation of the fitness values
of each individual in the entire population, thereby determining the current global best
solution for solving the feature selection problem. The following subsection discusses the
fitness function used in this study.

3.3.2. Fitness and Cost Functions

A combination of both the fitness function evaluation and the cost function evalua-
tion was used to locate the best-performing solution to solve the feature selection problem.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 10 of 46

The fitness function in Equation (10) evaluates the solution based on its performance on
classifier 𝑐𝑙𝑓 on subset of the dataset 𝑋 : 1 and with the application of control pa-
rameter 𝜔. The notation 1 , as used in the equation, returns the number of 1 s in the
array representing individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 . Note that the notation |𝐹| returns the number of fea-
tures selected in the individual, while 𝐷 represents the dimension of the features in da-
taset 𝑋. For experimental purposes, a value of 0.99 was used for 𝜔.
|𝐹|
𝑓𝑖𝑡 = 𝜔 ∗ (1 − 𝑐𝑙𝑓(𝑋 : 1 ) + ((1 − 𝜔) ) (10)
𝐷
In Equation (11), the cost function is evaluated from the output of the fitness function,
i.e., by simply subtracting the value returned by 𝑓𝑖𝑡 from 1. Both the fitness and cost
function values are graphically applied to analyze and interpret the relevance and quality
of every best solution obtained for each dataset.

𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 = 1 − 𝑓𝑖𝑡 (11)

In the following subsection, we demonstrate how these functions are used in the de-
scription of the proposed BEOSA method.

3.3.3. BEOSA Algorithm and Flowchart

The representative models for the binary search space and mathematical models de-
scribed in the previous subsections are formalized using the algorithm and flowchart pre-
sented in this subsection. First, we present the algorithmic formalization as seen in Algo-
rithm 1, which indicates that the values for 𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑐ℎ (maximum number of iterations),
𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 (population size), 𝑠𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 (short distance rate) and 𝑙𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 (long displacement
rate) are required for input, while the output of the algorithm is the global best solution,
the cost values for each iteration and the feature count obtained for the optimization pro-
cess. The binarization of the solution space and computation of the fitness values for each
solution are listed in Lines 4–5. The current global best solution and the displacement po-
sitions for all individuals in the susceptible compartment are computed in Lines 6–7. In
Lines 8–34, the iteration for the optimization process is described, given the satisfiability
of two conditions: the number of maximum iterations is not reached, and some individu-
als remain infected. An estimation of the number of individuals to quarantine from the
infected is computed, and a declaration of the separation of quarantined from infected
individuals is made, in Lines 9–10. Iteration of the infected individuals is declared in Line
11, and the number of newly infected cases in the susceptible group is shown in Line 12.
In Lines 13–28, we iterate the newly infected cases and generate the discriminant value in
Line 14. If the evaluation of the condition in Line 15 is true, then it implies that the method
will search within a local space; otherwise, it will search in a global space. In each case of
exploitation and exploration, we compute the anticipated number of infections. In Lines
17–21, we apply the 𝑆1 () or 𝑆2 () function, depending on the value of 𝑑. Additionally,
depending on the satisfiability of the condition in Line 18, the feature position in that in-
dividual is mutated to either 1 or 0. A similar procedure is repeated for the exploration
phase using the 𝑇1 () or 𝑇2 () function, depending on the value of 𝑑. Finally, the com-
partments are updated and the global best solution is determined before executing the
next iteration.

Algorithm 1

1 Input: epoch, psize, srate, lrate

2 Output: gbest, costs, fcount
3 begin
4 Initialize the populations (psize) as S
5 Binarize the solution space S
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 11 of 46

6 Assign first item in population to first infected case (I)

7 Make newly infected case global best
8 while e < epoch andsize (I) > 0 do:
9 Compute individuals to be quarantinea
10 I=difference of current infected cases (I) from quarantine cases
11 for i in 1 to size(I) do:
12 generate new infected (nI) case from S
13 for i in 1 to size(nI) do:
14 randomly generate d between 1|0
15 if displacement(nI[i]) > 0.5 do:
16 update size of nI using srate
17 s = use S2(nI[i]) to transform all dimensions if d is 1, otherwise use S1(nI[i])
18 if s >= rand do:
19 nI[i]=1
20 else:
21 nI[i]=0
22 else:
23 update size of nI using lrate
24 t = use T2(nI[i]) to transform all dimensions if d is 1, otherwise use T1(nI[i])
25 if t >= rand do:
26 nI[i]=1
27 else:
28 nI[i]=0
29 Evaluate new fitness of nI[i]
30 add (nI) cases to (I) cases
31 Update all compartment
32 Update best solution so far
33 Increment e by 1
34 End while
35 Compute feature count (fcount)
36 Return best solution, cost of best solution, fcount

Figure 5 is a flowchart of the entire optimization process of the algorithm. The

figure provides a representation of the entire algorithm using a graphical method,
including a graphic representation of the flow of the use of the transformation func-
tions. The parting points for the S-functions and T-functions are shown clearly. The
flowchart shows the initialization of the population and the global best updates upon the
completion of an iterative process.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 12 of 46

Figure 5. Flowchart of the BEOSA algorithm showing the application of the V-functions and S-functions to transform the feature indicators of individuals in the
infected sub-population.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 13 of 46

In the following subsection, we describe the various classifiers applied in this study
to obtain the fitness and cost values of the BEOSA method.

3.4. Feature Selection and Count

The computation of the fitness and cost functions largely depends on the classifica-
tion accuracy obtained by using a classifier on a selected fragment of the dataset. In this
study, an investigative exploration was carried out to determine the influence of different
popular classifiers in solving the feature selection problem. Although the K-nearest-neigh-
bor (KNN) was used as the base classifier, we applied the random forest (RF), multi-layer
perceptron (MLP), decision tree (DT), support vector machine (SVM), and Gaussian Naive
Bayes (GNB) classifiers as well. On this basis, the number of features selected for arbitrary
individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 is computed using Equation (12), where 𝐷 and 1 represent the di-
mension of the feature size in the dataset and the number of feature positions with 1s in
individual 𝑖𝑛𝑑 , respectively.

∑ (1 )
𝑓𝑐 = (12)
𝐷
The following listing summarizes and describes the procedures and parametrization
used for each of the classifiers investigated in this study:
a) KNN model: this model solves the classification problem by obtaining K-sets
of items sharing some similarity. k-fold values of 5, 3 and 2 were investigated
to ascertain the most viable settings. For most of the applied datasets, we
found a k-fold of 5 to yield optimal performance, whereas in the case of the
Iris and Lung datasets using the BSFO algorithm, we found a k-fold of 2 to
be optimal.
b) DT model: similar to the KNN, this study found that k-fold values of 5 and 2
were more suitable for most algorithms and the datasets studied. A signifi-
cant number of the experiments showed impressive performance using a k-
fold of 5. Meanwhile, the maximum depth used for the decision tree model
was 2.
c) RF model: the classification task of RF for all of the benchmark datasets that
were applied using the proposed algorithm was tested using 300 estimators,
while the k-fold used for the cross-validation operation remained at 5.
d) MLP model: the MLP model was tested with the settings of 0.001 for the al-
pha parameter and with hidden layer sizes of the tuple (1000, 500, 100). The
model was trained over 2000 epochs with a random state of 4. Additionally,
a k-fold of 5 was used for the cross-validation task.
e) SVM model: the SVM undertakes its classification operation by identifying a
decision boundary which is approximate enough to separate items in a da-
taset into classes. The linear function was applied for the kernel settings,
while a C value of 1 and a k-fold value of 5 were investigated with the pro-
posed BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms.
f) GNB model: The default values for the parameters of the GNB model were
applied for the experimentation, although we manually set the k-fold value
to 5 for the cross-validation task. These default parameters demonstrated op-
timal performance in computing the probability value, which may be de-
scribed as follows: given class label 𝑌 and feature vector 𝑋, we can compute
the probability of 𝑋 when that of 𝑌 is known, as shown in Equation (13).
𝑃(𝑋|𝑌)𝑃(𝑌)
𝑃(𝑌|𝑋) = (13)
𝑃(𝑋)
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 14 of 46

In the next section, we present a detailed discussion of the experimental settings and
computational environment with the datasets used to test the method presented in this
section.

4. Experimental Setup
A description of the experimental configuration is presented in this section. We first
note that the computational environment used for our experiments was a personal com-
puter (PC) with the following configuration: CPU, Intel® Core i5-4210U CPU 1.70 GHz,
2.40 GHz; RAM of 8 GB; Windows 10 OS. We also experimented on a series of computer
systems with the following configuration: Intel® Core i5-4200, CPU 1.70 GHz, 2.40 GHz;
RAM of 16 GB; 64-bit Windows 10 OS. The binary metaheuristic algorithms were imple-
mented using Python 3.7.3 and supporting libraries, such as Numpy and other dependent
libraries. While this describes the computational environment, the following subsections
detail the parameter settings and the nature of the input supplied during the experiments.
This section also presents and justifies the selection of some of the evaluation metrics ap-
plied for our comparison of results.

4.1. Dataset
Exhaustive experimentation with BEOSA was carried out using 22 benchmark and
popularly available datasets [41]. These datasets have been widely used for comparative
analyses of binary metaheuristic algorithms and were therefore considered suitable for
testing the efficiency and performance of the method proposed in this study. Table 1 pro-
vides some information about the applied datasets. High, moderate and low-dimension
datasets are included, making them suitable for experimenting with the BEOSA method
on those three dimensions. This became necessary, considering the importance of investi-
gating the suitability of an algorithm on a variety of datasets, high-dimension ones in par-
ticular, since these often have similarities with real-life binary optimization problems.
The number of biomedical datasets is growing rapidly; this has led to the generation
of high-dimensional features that negatively affect the classifiers of machine learning pro-
cesses [42]. Many of the feature selection methods described in the literature suffer from
diversity of population and local optima problems when they are evaluated against high-
dimensional datasets, such as the ever-growing body of biomedical datasets. Feature se-
lection is aimed at selecting the most effective features from an original set containing
irrelevant elements; this becomes especially challenging to with high-dimensional da-
tasets, which is why it is important for us to prove the efficacy of the BESOA with such
data dimensionality.
The Lung, Prostate, Leukemia, KrVsKpEW, Colon and WaveformEW datasets are
considered here as high-dimensional datasets with feature sizes ranging between 4 and
7070. Additionally, most of these datasets have binary classification problems or, in the
case of Lung and WaveformEW, multi-classification problems. BreastEW, Exactly, Ex-
actly2, M-of-n and Tic-tac-toe are medium-sized dimensional datasets. Most of the da-
tasets in this category have a number of instances between 9 and 203, and numbers of
features are mostly more than 270, except for Iris, which has about four features. Mean-
while, are all binary classification problems. Low-dimensional datasets are those consid-
ered to have < 500 instances and probably fewer features. The CongressEW, Iris, HeartEW,
Ionosphere, Lymphography, PenglungEW, Sonar, SpectEW, Vote and Zoo datasets are in
this category. The Iris dataset demonstrates exceptional characteristics, since only four
features exist in that dataset, but each has 150 instances. All are binary classification prob-
lems except for PenglungEW, Zoo and Lymphography, which are multi-classification
problems.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 15 of 46

Table 1. Datasets and their corresponding details, such as the number of features, classes and in-
stances, and a description of each.

Dataset and Refer- Number of Number of Number of

Description
ences Features Instances Class
BreastEW 569 30 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Lung [43] 3312 203 5 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
CongressEW [44] 435 16 2 Congressional voting dataset
Exactly [45] 1000 13 2 Artificial binary classification dataset
Iris [46] 4 150 2 Biology-based dataset
Exactly2 [45] 1000 13 2 Artificial binary classification dataset
HeartEW 270 13 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Ionosphere [47], 351 34 2 Electromagnetic dataset
Prostate 5966 102 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Lymphography [48] 148 18 4 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
M-of-n 1000 13 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Leukemia 7070 72 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
PenglungEW 325 73 7 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Sonar 208 60 2 Sonar signal classification dataset
SpectEW [49] 267 22 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Colon 2000 62 2 Biology-based and medical-oriented dataset
Tic-tac-toe [50] 958 9 2 Endgame dataset
Vote 300 16 2 Electioneering domain
Wine dataset showing the results of analysis of chemi-
Wine [51] 178 13 3
cals in wines.
Zoo 101 16 7 Biology-based dataset
KrVsKpEW 3196 36 2 Game dataset
A generator dataset generates three classes of waves,
with each class sampled at 21 intervals. Additionally,
WaveformEW [52] 5000 40 3
each class is a random convex combining 2 out of 3
base waves.

A description of each of these datasets is included. Most share some biological fea-
tures, while the rest were collated from various other domains.

4.2. Parameter Configuration and Settings

Eight binary variants of metaheuristic algorithms were employed for a comparative
analysis with the method proposed in this study, i.e., the binary dwarf mongoose opti-
mizer (BDMO) [14], the binary simulated normal distribution optimizer (BSNDO), the bi-
nary particle swarm optimizer (BPSO), the binary whale optimization algorithm (BWOA),
the binary sailfish optimizer (BSFO), the binary grey wolf optimizer (BGWO), BEOSA and
BIEOSA. Table 2 lists the parameter settings applied for each of the algorithms. The values
for the parameters π, β1, β2, β3 and β4, as used in our experiments with BEOSA and
BIEOSA, are listed in the table as 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1 and 0.1, respectively. Similarly, the values
for nb, na, ns, peep, 𝜏 and L were set at 3, (N-nb), (n-nb), 1, [0,1] and round (0.6*D*nb)
for BDMO. The mean of the population size was computed to set the mo parameter of the
BSNDO. Additionally, the BPSO control parameters c1, c2, W and Vmax were initialized at
2, 2, 0.9 and 6. The parameters for the remaining algorithms are shown in the table, with
p, l, b r, and C for BWOA being initialized at [0,1, [0,1], 1, [0,1] and 2r. In BSFO, p was 0.1,
A was 4 and epsilon was 0.001. Lastly, BGWO was initialized within the bound [2, 0] as
coefficient for decreasing power attack.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 16 of 46

Table 2. Parameters for the BEOSA, BIEOSA, BDMO, BSNDO, BPSO, BWOA, BSFO and BGWO
metaheuristic algorithms in this study. N, as used for BDMO and BSNDO, denotes the population
size.

Method Parameter Value Definition

BEOSA π 0.1 Recruitment rate
Contact rate of infected individ-
uals, of the host, with the dead
β1, β2, β3 and β4 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, and 0.1
and with the recovered individ-
uals
BIEOSA π 0.1 Recruitment rate
Contact rate of infected individ-
uals, of the host, with the dead
β1, β2, β3 and β4 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, and 0.1
and with the recovered individ-
uals
BDMO nb 3 Number of babysitters
na N- nb Number of alpha
ns N- nb Number of subordinates
Peep sound, tau operator for fit-
peep, 𝜏 1, rand (0, 1)
ness evaluation
Babysitter exchange parameter
L round (0.6*D*nb)

Mean position of the popula-

BSNDO mo mean(N)
tion
Positive learning factors con-
BPSO c1, c2 2, 2
stant 1 and constant 2
W 0.9 Initial weight
6
Vmax Maximum velocity vector

Random number, random num-

BWOA p, l [0, 1], [-1, 1]
ber
b 1 Shape of spiral
[0, 1], 2r Random vector, coefficient vec-
r, C
tor
Percentage of the sardine popu-
BSFO Pp 0.1
lation
4, 0.001 The coefficient for decreasing
A, 𝜀
power attack
BGWO au [2,0]

Population sizes of 25, 50, 75 and 100 were investigated for each of the algorithms to
show how this variable affected performance. The training of the algorithms followed 50
iterative processes, and the experiment for each algorithm was typically repeated 10
times/runs to determine the average performance. The formulae applied to compute these
averages and all other similar metrics used for our comparative analysis are presented in
the following subsection.

4.3. Evaluation Metrics

The evaluation metrics presented in the following paragraphs describe the approach
used to quantify the obtained values to support our performance comparison. The follow-
ing metrics are discussed: classification accuracy, mean accuracy, best accuracy and the
standard deviation fitness obtained using Equations (14)–(16).
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 17 of 46

a) Classification accuracy (CA): this computes the accuracy of classifier 𝑐𝑙𝑓 with da-
taset 𝑋 and label 𝑌, as described in Equation (14):

𝐶𝐴 = 𝑐𝑙𝑓(𝑋, 𝑌) (14)

b) Mean accuracy (MA): this computes the mean of all classification accuracies ob-
tained after a certain number of runs on a given algorithm, where 𝑎𝑐𝑐 is the accu-
racy obtained during iteration 𝑖 after 𝑁 iterations and all accuracy values 𝑎𝑐𝑐
obtained for 𝑁 times, as described in Equation (15):

1
𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 = 𝐶𝐴 (15)
𝑁

c) Best Accuracy (BA): the best of all classification accuracies obtained after a
certain number of runs, as described in Equation (16):
𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 = max(𝐶𝐴) (16)

d) Average feature count (AFC): obtained by finding the average value for all numbers
of selected features for all population groups (𝑃𝐺), as described in Equation (17):

1
𝐴𝐹𝐶 = 𝑓𝑐 (17)
𝑃𝐺

The following section presents the results of all experiments and a comparative anal-
ysis of the algorithms. Additionally, the findings derived from the results are highlighted.

5. Results and Discussion of Findings

The results presented in this section are focused on the performance of BEOSA and
BIEOSA in comparison with those of similar methods, i.e., the binary dwarf mongoose
optimizer (BDMO) [3], the binary simulated normal distribution optimizer (BSNDO) [9],
the binary particle swarm optimizer (BPSO) [53], the binary whale optimization algorithm
(BWOA) [54], the binary grey wolf optimizer (BGWO) [54] and the binary sailfish opti-
mizer (BSFO) [56] algorithms. The selection of these algorithms was based on their out-
standing performance, as described in various reports, and their status as state-of-the-art
methods for binary optimization. We note that our evaluations of most of these algorithms
applied the same parameterizations, e.g., the number of iterations and parameter settings.
The following subsections are organized as follows. Firstly, we provide a comparative
analysis of the various methods based on their fitness performance and the number of
selected features. We then examine the classification accuracy of each method as com-
pared with others. Next, we compare the cost functions of all methods and show the im-
pact of the choice of classifiers on the feature classification procedure. Finally, we report
the computational time of each method and discuss our findings. The following subsec-
tions using tabular and graphical means for the sake of clarity.

5.1. Comparative Analysis of Fitness and Cost Functions

BEOSA and BIEOSA are now compared with related algorithms based on the results
obtained for fitness and cost functions. The fitness function aims to minimize the objective
function, while the cost function aims to maximize it. Table 3 lists the results obtained for
each of the binarized algorithms for all benchmark datasets.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 18 of 46

The BWOA algorithms performed better on the BreastEW, Lung, Iris, Exactly2, Colon
and Vote datasets, with fitness values of 0.0307, 0.0006, 0.0050, 0.2384, 0.0004 and 0.0013,
respectively. BWOA showed superiority with six benchmark datasets, while BGWO
showed superiority with WaveformEW, yielding a fitness value of 0.1817. BSNDO out-
performed the other methods on eight datasets, i.e., Lymphography, M-of-n, Pen-
glungEW, Sonar, SpectEW, Tic-tac-toe, Wine and KrVsKpEW, with fitness values of
0.0380, 0.0046, 0.0013, 0.0047, 0.0948, 0.1647, 0.0298 and 0.0250, respectively. Interestingly,
BEOSA outperformed most of the other methods, showing superiority with nine datasets,
i.e., CongressEW, Exactly, Exactly2, HeartEW, Ionosphere, Prostate, Wine and Zoo, with
fitness values of 0.0575, 0.2620, 0.2384, 0.0772, 0.0722, 0.0002, 0.0298 and 0.0533, respec-
tively. Meanwhile, the associated variant of the proposed algorithm, BIEOSA, was com-
petitive with BEOSA, showing superiority on two datasets. The implication of these find-
ings is that the new method is suitable for minimizing the fitness function, allowing it to
solve the difficult problem of feature selection on a wide range of datasets with different
dimensionalities.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 19 of 46

Table 3. Results of fitness and cost functions for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA on all benchmark datasets.
BWOA BPSO BSFO BGWO BDMO BSNDO BEOSA BIEOSA
Dataset
Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost Fitness Cost
BreastEW 0.0307 0.9693 1.0000 0.0000 0.0374 0.9626 0.0564 0.9436 0.8233 0.1767 0.9265 0.0735 0.0404 0.9596 0.0651 0.9349
Lung 0.0006 0.9994 0.0516 0.9484 0.0535 0.9465 0.0307 0.9693 0.9729 0.0271 0.9729 0.0271 0.0490 0.9510 0.0492 0.9508
CongressEW 0.0588 0.9412 0.2175 0.7825 0.026 0.9742 0.0259 0.9741 0.9071 0.0929 0.9071 0.0929 0.0575 0.9425 0.1068 0.8932
Exactly 0.6923 0.3077 0.4859 0.5141 0′0147 0.9853 0.026 0.9740 0.6923 0.3077 0.6923 0.3077 0.2620 0.7380 0.3553 0.6447
Iris 0.0050 0.9950 0.6295 0.3705 NA 1.0000 0.0025 0.9975 0.7005 0.2995 0.8300 0.1700 0.0380 0.9620 0.2030 0.7970
Exactly2 0.2384 0.7616 0.2399 0.7601 0.0355 0.9645 0.2324 0.7676 0.6984 0.3016 0.6984 0.3016 0.2384 0.7616 0.2384 0.7616
HeartEW 0.2582 0.7418 0.4431 0.5569 0.3744 0.6256 0.1322 0.8678 0.5401 0.4599 0.4859 0.5141 0.0772 0.9228 0.2956 0.7044
Ionosphere 0.0734 0.9266 0.2171 0.7829 0.1791 0.8209 0.1335 0.8665 0.8860 0.1140 0.0162 0.9838 0.0722 0.9278 0.1288 0.8712
Prostate 0.0004 0.9996 0.0963 0.9037 0.0064 0.9936 0.0064 0.9936 0.9526 0.0474 0.9526 0.0474 0.0002 0.9998 0.0486 0.9514
Lymphography 0.2024 0.7976 0.3669 0.6331 0.3647 0.6353 0.1062 0.8938 0.5996 0.4004 0.0380 0.9620 0.1040 0.8960 0.3003 0.6997
M-of-n 0.2506 0.7494 0.6252 0.3748 0.3678 0.6322 0.0054 0.9946 0.7281 0.2719 0.0046 0.9954 0.1581 0.8419 0.3678 0.6322
Leukemia 0.0662 0.9338 0.0736 0.9264 NA 1.0000 0.0063 0.9937 0.9297 0.0703 0.9297 0.0703 0.0662 0.9338 0.0042 0.9958
PenglungEW 0.0705 0.9295 0.0042 0.9958 0.2065 0.7935 0.0059 0.9941 0.6672 0.3328 0.0013 0.9987 0.0672 0.9328 0.2689 0.7311
Sonar 0.0724 0.9276 0.1194 0.8806 0.1946 0.8054 0.1946 0.8054 0.7626 0.2374 0.0047 0.9953 0.0717 0.9283 0.1889 0.8111
SpectEW 0.1315 0.8685 0.2223 0.7777 0.2465 0.7535 0.1159 0.8841 0.7764 0.2236 0.0948 0.9052 0.1498 0.8502 0.2433 0.7567
Colon 0.0004 0.9996 0.3860 0.6140 NA 1.0000 0.0063 0.9937 0.8449 0.1551 0.8449 0.1551 0.0001 0.9999 0.0776 0.9224
Tic-tac-toe 0.2623 0.7377 1.0000 0.0000 0.7635 0.2365 0.1750 0.8250 0.6534 0.3466 0.1647 0.8353 0.2943 0.7057 0.3809 0.6191
Vote 0.0013 0.9988 1.0000 0.0000 0.1681 0.8319 0.0203 0.9798 0.8471 0.1529 0.0019 0.9981 0.0545 0.9455 0.0863 0.9138
Wine 0.0306 0.9694 0.3865 0.6135 0.3048 0.6952 0.0863 0.9137 0.6685 0.3315 0.0298 0.9702 0.0298 0.9702 0.1131 0.8869
Zoo 0.0520 0.9480 0.2005 0.7995 0.1992 0.8008 0.0545 0.9455 0.7500 0.2500 0.7500 0.2500 0.0533 0.9468 0.2017 0.7983
KrVsKpEW 0.0612 0.9388 0.4728 0.5272 0.3519 0.6481 0.0348 0.9652 0.6828 0.3172 0.0250 0.9750 0.0382 0.9618 0.4083 0.5917
WaveformEW 0.2102 0.7898 0.5468 0.4533 0.3149 0.6851 0.1817 0.8183 0.3394 0.6606 1.0000 0.2431 0.7569 0.2762 0.7238
Summary 6 6 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 8 8 8 8 2 2
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 20 of 46

The values obtained for the cost function are plotted in Figure 6 to show the variation
in the performance of the algorithms with the various datasets. A close examination of the
plots for the Zoo, Vote, Wine, Sonar and Tic-tac-toe datasets shows that BEOSA yielded
outstanding cost values during the iterative process. In the five considered datasets, the
BGWO method showed unstable performance on the cost function, whereas the BEOSA,
BIEOSA, BDMO, BSNDO, BPSO, and BWOA were stable and BEOSA, BIEOSA, and BPSO
often yielded similar results. The BEOSA curve was above those of the other methods for
the Zoo, Sonar and Tic-tac-toe datasets and was close behind those of other methods for
the Vote and Wine datasets. In the second category, we compared the performance curves
of all the methods using M-of-N, Ionosphere, Exactly, Exactly2, and HeartEW datasets.
The BGWO maintained its unstable performance along the curve line, whereas all the re-
maining methods yielded good results. For example, BEOSA and BPSO closely shared the
top section of the plots, meaning that their performance on the cost function was superior
to those of the other methods. At the same time, both BDMO and BWOA were low in all
the plots, showing that their performance in evaluating the cost function was poor. The
BIEOSA and BSNDO were average performers in the five datasets. The third categories of
datasets for comparison were Congress, Lymphography, BreastEW, Colon, and SpectEW.
With the high dimensional Colon dataset, the BEOSA yielded similar results to BPSO and
BGWO, even though the latter was unstable, while the variant BIEOSA and BSNDO meth-
ods demonstrated average performance. For the BreastEW dataset, both BEOSA and
BIEOSA outperformed the other methods, yielding the best cost function curve. The
BEOSA algorithm was just below that of BPSO on the Lymphography dataset, which su-
perseded all other algorithms. The BIEOSA, BPSO, and BWOA were all plotted at the top
section for the CongressEW datasets, while the BEOSA algorithm trailed behind. Simi-
larly, the BEOSA outperformed all methods on the SpectEW datasets, although the
BIEOSA algorithm yielded a curve in the lower section.
The performance of the algorithms on the Zoo dataset were as follows: the cost values
range for BIEOSA was 0.50–0.52, BSNDO 0.64–0.65, BDMO 0.75–0.76, BWOA 0.80–0.81,
BPSO 0.84–0.85, BGWO 0.74–0.95, and BEOSA 0.99–1.0. The Vote dataset yielded the fol-
lowing results: BWOA 0.80, BGWO 0.75–0.93, BSNDO, BDMO and BEOSA all 0.94,
BIEOSA 0.94–0.97, and BPSO 0.98. The Wine dataset results were as follows: BDMO 0.58,
BGWO 0.58–0.97, BSNDO 0.7750–0.7799, BWOA 0.81, BEOSA 0.94, BPSO 0.88–0.97, and
BIEOSA 0.97. Performance with the sonar dataset was as follows: BDMO was the lowest
among all curves at less than 0.55; meanwhile, BSNDO was at 0.76, BIEOSA was 0.78,
BWOA was 0.81, BGWO 0.88–0.87, BPSO 0.88–0.91, and BEOSA 0.86–0.93. For the tic-tac-
toe dataset performance BGWO outperformed the other methods by running from 0.62–
0.82, BDMO was 0.59, BWOA was 0.62, BIEOSA was 0.63, BSNDO was 0.66, BPSO was
0.68, and BEOSA was 0.73.
The performance of the algorithms on the M-of-n dataset was as follows: the cost
function values for BDMO were just above the 0.50 value, while those of BSNDO were
0.62, BWOA was 0.72, BIEOSA was 0.78, BEOSA was 0.83, BGWO was 0.80–0.84 with its
peak at 0.97, and BPSO was 0.92-1.0. The Ionosphere dataset yielded the following results:
BGWO began its curve from 0.752 and ended at 0.777, BWOA ran through 0.812, BDMO
ran through 0.8125, BIEOSA went from 0.826 to 0.840, BSNDO was above 0.850, the
BEOSA curve was just above 0.875, and the BPSO curve started from 0.805 and extended
to just above 0.900. The Exactly and Exactly2 datasets yielded the following patterns: the
BDMO curves were at 0.577 and 0.45 for Exactly and Exactly2, respectively. The BIEOSA
curve was 0.625 with Exactly and ranged from 0.64 to 0.68 on Exactly2, BWOA was 0.635
with Exactly and 0.47 with Exactly2, BSNDO was 0.635 with Exactly and 0.60 on Exactly2,
BGWO ranged from 0.650 to 0.635 on Exactly and from 0.75 to 0.70 on Exactly2, BPSO was
0.675 with Exactly and 0.75 with Exactly2, and BEOSA was just below 0 to above 0.76 with
Exactly and Exactly2, respectively. The result for HeartEW showed that BWOA and
BDMO ranked lowest, with cost function value of around 0.50. BGWO followed, starting
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 21 of 46

at 0.55, peaking at 0.83 and ending at 0.69; BIEOSA was 0.64, BPSO ran from 0.65 to 0.75,
and lastly, BEOSA, was above all the other algorithms at 0.78.
The CongressEW and Lymphography datasets demonstrated some similarity, with
the BSNDO curve at the bottom with 0.62 and 0.52, respectively. This was followed by
BDMO, which was at 0.80 and 0.70 with the CongressEW and Lymphography. While the
BIEOSA, BWOA and BPSO curves were around 0.95 for the CongressEW dataset, the same
algorithms were sparsely plotted with the Lymphography dataset at 0.68, 0.80, and 0.90,
respectively. Typically for BGWO, in this case, it started at 0.89 and ended at 0.86 for Con-
gressEW and started at 0.84 and ended at 0.78 with the Lymphography dataset. The
BEOSA curve was a 0.875 on the CongressEW dataset and 0.80 on the Lymphography
dataset. The algorithm curves showed different performance with the Colon and
BreastEW datasets. For instance, where the BWOA algorithm curve was below 0.70 with
Colon, it shot up above 0.90 with BreastEW. Additionally, the curve of BSNDO was
around 0.85 for the Colon graph but fell below 0.70 with the BreastEW graph. BIEOSA
also showed some disparity on Colon, where it crossed the graph close to 0.85; meanwhile,
with the BreastEW, it had a better cost value, running close to 0.95. The characteristic of
BGWO is that it always zig-zagged its curves, as can be seen with Colon, where it started
at 0.92 and ended on the same value, peaking at around 1.0 and dipping to around 0.85.
The same algorithm started at 0.93 and ended at 0.92, with its peak at around 0.94 and
trough at 0.86 for the BreastEW dataset. The BDMO curve was just below 0.70 on the Co-
lon and around 0.93 on BreastEW. The BPSO and BEOSA curves were around 1.0 with the
Colon dataset. Lastly, the SpectEW dataset had some interesting curves for BIEOSA, BPSO
and BEOSA, with curves starting from 0.62, 0.83, and 0.90, respectively, and then stabiliz-
ing at 0.62, 0.83, and 0.89, respectively. BSNDO and BWOA consistently had curves at 0.75
and 0.80, respectively. BGWO spiked up and down, starting from 0.70 to 0.80 and having
a peak at 0.81. BDMO was just below 0.80.
The takeaway from these cost function evaluations is that whereas the values ob-
tained varied across datasets, both BPSO and BEOSA always performed well, mostly
yielding curves above those of the other algorithms. This implies that both algorithms
demonstrated superiority compared with the other methods, though in most cases,
BEOSA outperformed BPSO.

(a) (b)
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 22 of 46

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

(g) (h)

(i) (j)
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 23 of 46

(k) (l)

(m) (n)

(o)
Figure 6. Graph-based comparative analysis of the cost function values obtained for all binary opti-
mization methods on (a) Zoo; (b) Vote; (c) Wine; (d) Sonar; (e) Tic-tac-toe; (f) M-of-n; (g) Ionosphere;
(h) Exactly; (i) Exactly2; (j) HeatEW; (k) CongressEW; (l) Lymphography; (m) Colon; (n) BreastEW;
and (o) SpectEW datasets.

The implication of these outcomes is that both the BEOSA and BIEOSA methods are
relevant binary optimization algorithms with great potential for producing very good per-
formance on heterogeneous datasets with different dimensionalities. The cost function,
which evaluates how far an algorithm moves away from the fitness function value, also
evaluates the robustness of the algorithm in terms of its ability to sustain a good cost func-
tion evaluation; the higher the cost function value, the better the fitness value obtained.
Considering the consistently outstanding performance of both BEOSA and BIEOSA on
the fitness and cost function evaluations with all datasets, we conclude that the algorithm
is very suitable for solving the problem of feature selection with effective minimization
and maximization of fitness and cost values, respectively. In the following subsection, we
compare the number of selected features obtained for all methods and associate this with
the fitness evaluation discussed in this section.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 24 of 46

5.2. Comparative Analysis of Selected Features for All Methods

The basis of solving feature selection problems using the binary optimization method
is to reduce the number of features used for classification purposes. This is necessary to
eliminate the bottleneck which is often associated with high-dimensional datasets on clas-
sifiers. Another benefit of reducing the number of features is to ensure that only relevant
ones are used for the classification operation. In this subsection, we evaluate BEOSA and
BIEOSA and compare their performance with that of BWOA, BPSO, BFSO, BGWOA,
BDMO and BSNDO. Table 4 compares the number of features selected for each algorithm
across four different population sizes, namely, 25, 50, 75 and 100.
An interesting performance result was observed when the algorithms were com-
pared based on their average number of selected features. For example, the BPSO outputs
a value of 1 for the number of selected features for all population sizes and for all datasets
considered during our experiments. While this showed some measure of abnormality in
the process of feature selection in the algorithm, we observed more standard performance
for all the remaining methods. As an example, consider the outcome of some low-dimen-
sional datasets such as the BreastEW, CongressEW, Exactly and Exactly2. The BEOSA and
BIEOSA yielded similar results to all the other methods. For BWOA, BGWO, BDMO,
BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA, the average numbers of features (on population sizes yield-
ing this average performance) were 17.0 (25), 16.9 (100), 5.5 (50), 3.0 (25), 7.3 (25) and 5.9
(75), respectively. The CongressEW showed 8.9 (100), 10.1 (25), 2.4 (50), 2.4 (50), 5.3 (100)
and 4.6 (50) for the same BWOA, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA methods.
Similarly, the Exactly dataset reported values of 6.2 (50), 8.5 (25), 3.0 (25), 2.2 (25), 4.2 (25)
and 2.5 (75), while Exactly2 gave 7.0 (75), 8.3 (100), 3.5 (100), 2.0 (25), 1.7 (100) and 2.5 (25)
on the same methods, respectively. These results show that in most cases, population sizes
of 25–50 were sufficient to produce the desired results. Even population-intensive algo-
rithms such as BEOSA and BIEOSA demonstrated that their best average feature selection
counts could be obtained using a population size range of 25–75.
High-dimensional datasets like Lung, Prostate, Leukemia and Colon, and moderate-
dimensional datasets like the PenglungEW, showed how superior the BEOSA and
BIEOSA methods were. For instance, the average feature selection numbers in the Lung
dataset were 1692.5 (100), 2151.1 (75), 820.3 (50), 2098.4 (25), 403.9 (100) and 685.3 (75) for
BWOA, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA respectively. Clearly, the BEOSA
algorithm yielded the best performance, i.e., 403.9 using 100 as the population size. Addi-
tionally, the results obtained for the Prostate dataset showed that the BDMO, BSNDO,
BEOSA and BIEOSA methods were able to yield average numbers of selected features of
1402.8 (100), 1478.4 (25), 682.2 (100) and 1141.5 (25), while the BEOSA provided the best
performance with a population size of 100. A very impressive result was obtained for
BEOSA and BIEOSA on the Leukemia dataset; the BWOA, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO,
BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms yielded 1708.3 (25), 2320.4 (75), 999.7 (75), 928.5 (25), 50.3
(25) and 589.7 (75), respectively, for the average number of selected features. BEOSA pro-
duced an optimal number of 50.3 for selected features with a population size of 25. More-
over, the BIEOSA variant also yielded 589.7 as the average feature size with a population
size of 75. Furthermore, the performance of the BWOA, BPSO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO,
BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms on the PenglungEW dataset showed values of 170.0 (75),
4.0 (50), 193.0 (50), 23.9 (100), 124.0 (100), 35.0 (75) and 24.0 (25), respectively, as the aver-
age number of selected features. Accordingly, BEOSA and BIEOSA performed well using
population sizes of 75 and 25, respectively. The performance on the Colon dataset for the
BEOSA and BIEOSA methods was also very impressive compared with related methods;
the BWOA, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA yielded 1016.1 (50), 1301.5
(100), 546.2 (25), 1374.3 (25), 157.1 (75) and 316.5 (100), respectively. We observed that both
BEOSA and BIEOSA yielded a low average number of selected features, with values of
157.1 and 316.5, respectively, for methods with population sizes of 75 and 100. Note that
the population was not so relevant to the obtained result, since BGWO, which obtained
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 25 of 46

its best average number of selected features with a population size of 100, yielded a far
worse result.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 26 of 46

Table 4. Results of the average number of features selected for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA on all datasets with population
sizes of 25, 50, 75 and 100.
BWOA BPSO BSFO BGWO BDMO BSNDO BEOSA BIEOSA
Dataset
Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features Number of Features
25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100
BreastEW 17.0 17.1 17.3 18.4 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 10.5 10.0 11.0 11.5 20.1 18.9 18.6 16.9 7.1 8.3 5.5 5.6 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 7.3 10.3 9.6 8.1 7.7 5.9 10.0 8.1
Lung 1907.2 1840.7 1693.5 1692.5 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 NA NA NA NA 2165.4 2180.4 2151.1 2168.9 847.5 820.3 1161.9 971.2 2098.4 2098.4 2098.4 2098.4 443.7 857.4 461.9 403.9 970.4 1189.7 685.3 699.9
Con-
9.4 9.8 9.1 8.9 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 6.7 6.6 6.0 5.8 10.1 11.2 10.2 10.2 4.7 2.4 2.9 3.2 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 5.9 5.7 6.4 5.3 5.7 4.6 5.1 5.9
gressEW
Exactly 7.1 6.2 7.7 7.6 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.7 8.5 9.1 9.3 9.4 3.0 3.9 3.3 3.1 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.2 4.2 4.3 4.8 4.9 3.5 3.6 2.5 2.6
Iris 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.4 1.3 1.7 1.8 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Exactly2 7.3 7.0 8.0 5.7 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 4.5 5.0 5.0 4.5 8.8 8.9 8.3 8.3 4.0 3.7 4.8 3.5 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 1.9 1.7 1.7 2.5 3.7 3.6 3.6
HeartEW 7.1 7.5 8.2 7.7 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 5.0 5.0 1.0 5.0 8.7 9.5 8.3 7.5 2.8 2.8 3.7 2.9 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 4.3 3.1 4.8 2.6 4.3 3.7 2.7 2.8
Ionosphere 18.6 17.2 17.6 17.2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 8.0 14.0 10.0 8.0 21.9 21.8 21.1 21.5 5.0 8.8 8.3 5.5 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.4 7.3 7.1 7.6 8.4 8.0 10.2 10.6 8.2
Prostate 3274.1 3257.7 3255.6 3286.4 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3916 3916 3916 3916 3937.1 3949.7 3929.2 3927.2 2272.8 1506.3 1685.3 1402.8 1478.4 1478.4 1478.4 1478.4 1326.1 941.5 895.3 682.2 1141.5 1389.3 1437.3 1359.3
Lympho-
12.0 10.3 10.1 9.6 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 9.0 9.0 9.0 5.0 11.7 12.8 12.2 11.4 3.9 4.7 5.9 3.5 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 7.3 6.9 7.1 7.1 4.5 5.9 6.0 5.6
graphy
M-of-n 8.2 8.1 8.3 7.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 5.0 2.0 6.0 8.6 7.8 8.2 8.4 2.2 1.9 2.9 2.9 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 7.1 7.5 7.0 6.1 4.3 4.0 3.2 4.5
Leukemia 1708.3 1719.8 1872.7 1778.9 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 NA NA NA NA 2340.6 2334.1 2320.4 2337.8 1025.2 1483.3 999.7 1194.3 928.5 928.5 928.5 928.5 253.6 110.3 121.9 50.3 1202.4 865.7 589.7 876.0
Pen-
192.0 190.0 170.0 179.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 109.0 4.0 85 67 207.0 193.0 212.0 213.0 176.2 103.9 189.4 23.9 142.0 144.0 124.0 170.0 46.0 134.0 35.0 40.0 24.0 122.0 92.0 158.0
glungEW
Sonar 34.6 34.0 31.6 32.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 20.0 10.0 9.0 8.0 38.2 38.5 39.6 37.9 7.3 13.0 18.6 11.1 23.0 23.0 23.0 23.0 22.4 23.7 24.3 16.5 18.8 18.5 19.3 13.9
SpectEW 12.2 13.1 12.3 10.2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 6.0 4.0 9.0 13.4 13.9 15.6 13.6 5.7 10.1 6.3 8.4 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1 7.7 9.3 7.0 7.5 7.9 5.3 5.9 6.3
Colon 1127.0 1016.1 1066.2 1035.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 NA NA NA NA 1302.0 1303.2 1306.3 1301.5 546.2 623.6 657.4 727.7 1374.3 1374.3 1374.3 1374.3 338.5 286.8 197.0 157.1 384.3 632.0 472.5 316.5
Tic-tac-toe 4.7 4.7 5.4 4.7 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 3.0 4.0 1.0 5.6 6.3 6.2 6.1 2.3 2.3 1.8 2.1 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 5.5 5.6 5.2 6.4 2.5 2.9 3.1 2.7
Vote 8.5 9.2 8.4 7.5 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 10.8 11.3 11.0 10.2 3.4 4.1 4.3 3.7 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 5.1 5.8 5.7 5.1 3.5 4.4 5.0 4.0
Wine 7.4 8.2 8.0 7.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 3.0 1.0 3.0 5.0 7.7 8.2 8.0 7.3 3.0 3.8 3.1 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 5.0 4.5 4.9 5.4 4.3 3.7 3.8 3.8
Zoo 10.1 8.6 8.8 9.3 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 4.0 6.0 10.9 10.6 10.0 9.3 2.4 1.8 3.9 3.3 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 6.8 7.7 7.3 7.6 5.1 4.6 4.5 5.6
KrVsKpEW 19.0 23.0 21.0 26.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 27.0 22.0 27.0 25.0 6.1 2.4 4.2 5.7 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.4 22.6 17.4 20.9 21.1 8.0 10.8 8.8 12.8
Wave-
25.8 26.1 27.0 25.7 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 NA NA NA NA 27.0 27.0 27.0 25.0 14.0 6.9 1.0 2.1 20.0 20.0 25.0 24.0 25.0 20.0 26.0 14.0 11.0 18.0 4.0 12.8
formEW
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 28 of 46

The performance of BEOSA and BIEOSA regarding the average number of selected
features showed that the proposed method is suitable for selecting the optimal set of fea-
tures required to achieve improved classification accuracy. An interesting finding re-
vealed by this performance analysis was that BEOSA and BIEOSA are very suitable meth-
ods for high-dimensional datasets with a larger number of features to start with. The re-
sult also showed that both BEOSA and BIEOSA were very competitive approaches, even
when dealing with low-dimensional datasets. In the following subsection, we evaluate
and compare the classification accuracy of the selected features by each of the methods
discussed in this section.

5.3. Comparative Analysis of the Classification Accuracy of All Methods

The average number of selected features influences the classification accuracy, with
a lower number of features being desirable so that classification operation is not bottle-
necked. In this subsection, we evaluate the performance of BIEOSA and BEOSA and com-
pare these approaches to related methods. Moreover, a comparative analysis is done in a
manner that considers the influence of the population size on performance. Similar to the
previous subsection, population sizes of 25, 50, 75, and 100 were compared for each binary
optimizer algorithm.
Table 5 shows the performance of the BreastEW, Exactly2, HeartEW and Ionosphere
datasets in relation to BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and
BIEOSA. For the BreastEW datasets, values of 0.9351, 0.9535, 0.9272, 0.8921, 0.6930, 0.9430
and 0.9149 were obtained for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and
BIEOSA, respectively. Interestingly, the BEOSA algorithm with a population size 100
yielded the best overall performance. The best overall performance obtained with the Ex-
actly2, HeartEW and Ionosphere datasets was 0.7660, 0.8074 and 0.9286 using BPSO,
BEOSA and BPSO, respectively. The breakdown results on the Exactly2 dataset showed
classification accuracies of 0.7345, 0.7660, 0.7350, 0.7175, 0.6875, 0.5900, 0.7625 and 0.7495
when using BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA, respec-
tively. Values of 0.6963, 0.8019, 0.7222, 0.6963, 0.5722, 0.4815, 0.8074 and 0.6870, and 0.8500,
0.9286, 0.9000, 0.8457, 0.8143, 0.7286, 0.9143 and 0.8729 were obtained for the BWOA,
BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA when using the HeartEW and
Ionosphere datasets, respectively.
Similarly, the performance of the Tic-tac-toe, Vote, Wine and Zoo datasets with
BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA was observed. The
results showed with Tic-tac-toe, BEOSA was superior, with a classification accuracy of
0.7964. In contrast, the worst performance on this dataset was observed with the BDMO
method, which yielded a value of 0.6219. The BEOSA method showed a classification ac-
curacy of 0.9583 with the Vote dataset, a demonstration of superiority above all other
methods; BPSO yielded 0.9450 and BDMO yielded 0.8333. The Wine and Zoo datasets
yielded 0.9556 and 0.9400 classification accuracy with the BEOSA method for the two da-
tasets. We note that in most cases where BEOSA outperformed the other methods, the
population sizes were 75 and 100, which supports the attainment of optimal performance
in the high dimensional datasets.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 30 of 46

Table 5. Comparative analysis of classification accuracy obtained for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA on all datasets using
population sizes of 25, 50, 75, and 100.
BWOA BPSO BSFO BGWO BDMO BSNDO BEOSA BIEOSA
Dataset Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy Accuracy
25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100
0.935 0.918 0.921 0.936 0.943 0.942 0.807 0.859 0.912 0.913 0.914 0.892 0.852 0.754 0.791 0.693 0.693 0.693 0.693 0.943 0.945 0.937 0.943 0.897 0.880 0.914 0.902
BreastEW 0.9175 0.9535 0.9035 0.7456 0.9272
1 4 9 8 9 1 0 6 3 2 0 1 6 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 7 0 4 7 9 6
0.965 0.951 0.961 0.982 0.980 0.990 0.939 0.953 0.951 0.909 0.907 0.904 0.926 0.926 0.926 0.926 0.926 0.982 0.985 0.985 0.982 0.953 0.941 0.946 0.943
Lung 0.9512 0.9780 NA NA NA NA 0.9512
9 2 0 9 5 2 0 7 2 8 3 9 8 8 8 8 8 9 4 4 9 7 5 3 9
0.933 0.931 0.904 0.954 0.967 0.962 0.551 0.827 0.919 0.939 0.933 0.814 0.679 0.748 0.771 0.827 0.827 0.827 0.827 0.962 0.956 0.964 0.966 0.898 0.910 0.886 0.903
CongressEW 0.9126 0.9609 0.8736 0.8276 0.9264
3 0 6 0 8 1 7 6 5 1 3 9 3 3 3 6 6 6 6 1 3 4 7 9 3 2 4
0.671 0.664 0.649 0.718 0.761 0.760 0.690 0.690 0.660 0.696 0.674 0.554 0.591 0.565 0.568 0.625 0.625 0.625 0.625 0.699 0.713 0.711 0.747 0.624 0.656 0.643 0.686
Exactly 0.6575 0.8285 0.6150 0.6900 0.6730
5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 5 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 5 0 5 5 0
1.000 0.933 0.900 0.966 0.933 1.000 0.966 0.96666 0.966 1.000 0.933 1.000 0.966 0.833 0.400 0.566 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.966 0.733 0.933 0.833 0.800
Iris 0.9333 1.0000 0.9667 0.7333 NA NA NA NA
0 3 0 7 3 0 7 7 7 0 3 0 7 3 0 7 0 0 0 7 3 3 3 0
0.727 0.721 0.734 0.761 0.762 0.766 0.625 0.730 0.712 0.711 0.715 0.664 0.636 0.687 0.626 0.590 0.590 0.590 0.590 0.762 0.762 0.762 0.761 0.749 0.743 0.737 0.732
Exactly2 0.7070 0.7610 0.7350 0.7300 0.7175
5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 5 0 5 5 5 5
0.629 0.666 0.696 0.783 0.801 0.801 0.703 0.722 0.655 0.624 0.696 0.548 0.572 0.555 0.531 0.481 0.481 0.481 0.481 0.774 0.775 0.807 0.807 0.690 0.659 0.687 0.668
HeartEW 0.6537 0.7852 0.6111 0.5185 0.6833
6 7 3 3 9 9 7 2 6 1 3 1 2 6 5 5 5 5 5 1 9 4 4 7 3 0 5
0.815 0.848 0.850 0.908 0.928 0.928 0.900 0.828 0.838 0.845 0.840 0.790 0.812 0.814 0.761 0.728 0.728 0.728 0.728 0.894 0.914 0.895 0.914 0.842 0.872 0.844 0.815
Ionosphere 0.8400 0.9057 0.8429 0.8143 0.8071
7 6 0 6 6 6 0 6 6 7 0 0 9 3 4 6 6 6 6 3 3 7 3 9 9 3 7
0.928 0.947 0.976 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.981 0.942 0.909 0.785 0.752 0.771 0.747 0.904 0.904 0.904 0.904 0.990 1.000 0.995 1.000 0.909 0.885 0.885 0.828
Prostate 0.9333 1.0000 1.0000 1 0.9571
6 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 5 7 4 4 6 8 8 8 8 5 0 2 0 5 7 7 6
Lymphogra- 0.800 0.766 0.666 0.853 0.873 0.870 0.666 0.633 0.730 0.733 0.763 0.563 0.556 0.626 0.523 1.000 0.933 1.000 0.966 0.823 0.856 0.850 0.840 0.656 0.680 0.693 0.690
0.8000 0.8800 0.7333 0.7667 0.7500
phy 0 7 7 3 3 0 7 3 0 3 3 3 7 7 3 0 3 0 7 3 7 0 0 7 0 3 0
0.790 0.758 0.776 0.876 0.870 0.870 0.630 0.740 0.789 0.830 0.790 0.589 0.605 0.603 0.638 0.620 0.620 0.620 0.620 0.832 0.848 0.808 0.799 0.698 0.685 0.636 0.737
M-of-n 0.7425 0.8755 0.6900 0.6600 0.7950
5 5 5 5 5 5 0 0 5 5 5 5 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5
0.946 0.953 0.966 0.986 0.993 1.000 0.966 0.986 0.980 0.913 0.920 0.893 0.900 0.866 0.866 0.866 0.866 1.000 0.993 0.980 0.993 0.913 0.960 0.960 0.980
Leukemia 0.9600 0.9867 NA NA NA NA 0.9800
7 3 7 7 3 0 7 7 0 3 0 3 0 7 7 7 7 0 3 0 3 3 0 0 0
0.800 0.800 0.866 0.866 0.800 1.000 0.800 0.666 0.800 0.866 0.866 0.733 0.733 0.666 0.466 0.666 0.800 0.733 0.933 0.933 0.800 0.866 0.866 0.733 1.000 0.800 0.666
PenglungEW 0.8667 0.8000 0.4000 0.9333 0.8000
0 0 7 7 0 0 0 7 0 7 7 3 3 7 7 7 0 3 3 3 0 7 7 3 0 0 7
0.809 0.771 0.769 0.873 0.888 0.885 0.714 0.690 0.819 0.792 0.788 0.628 0.683 0.719 0.642 0.761 0.761 0.761 0.761 0.864 0.869 0.878 0.857 0.816 0.809 0.828 0.781
Sonar 0.7952 0.8619 0.7857 0.6429 0.7500
5 4 0 8 1 7 3 5 0 9 1 6 3 0 9 9 9 9 9 3 0 6 1 7 5 6 0
0.803 0.803 0.816 0.837 0.846 0.846 0.796 0.759 0.814 0.785 0.811 0.696 0.727 0.729 0.735 0.740 0.740 0.740 0.740 0.850 0.844 0.825 0.844 0.783 0.813 0.787 0.803
SpectEW 0.7759 0.8333 0.7963 0.7963 0.7963
7 7 7 0 3 3 3 3 8 2 1 3 8 6 2 7 7 7 7 0 4 9 4 3 0 0 7
0.992 0.907 0.907 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.976 0.984 0.915 0.753 0.723 0.684 0.715 0.846 0.846 0.846 0.846 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 0.830 0.876 0.869 0.892
Colon 0.9538 1.0000 NA NA NA NA 0.9385
3 7 7 0 0 0 9 6 4 8 1 6 4 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 8 9 2 3
0.684 0.700 0.687 0.731 0.719 0.738 0.619 0.651 0.694 0.725 0.707 0.577 0.621 0.592 0.604 0.645 0.645 0.645 0.645 0.739 0.779 0.744 0.796 0.630 0.669 0.640 0.647
Tic-tac-toe 0.6818 0.7474 0.5417 0.6979 0.6828
4 5 0 8 8 5 8 0 8 5 8 6 9 2 2 8 8 8 8 6 7 8 4 7 8 1 9
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 31 of 46

0.883 0.891 0.891 0.935 0.928 0.945 0.850 0.850 0.896 0.885 0.893 0.773 0.806 0.833 0.830 0.933 0.933 0.933 0.933
0.941 0.946 0.958 0.955 0.841 0.833 0.878 0.820
Vote 0.8750 0.9450 0.8500 0.8167 0.8600
3 7 7 0 3 0 0 0 7 0 3 3 7 3 0 3 3 3 3 7 7 3 0 7 3 3 0
0.708 0.747 0.763 0.911 0.902 0.888 0.888 0.722 0.738 0.783 0.763 0.636 0.652 0.644 0.658 0.722 0.722 0.722 0.722
0.938 0.919 0.936 0.955 0.825 0.727 0.811 0.802
Wine 0.7306 0.9278 0.6111 0.6667 0.7722
3 2 9 1 8 9 9 2 9 3 9 1 8 4 3 2 2 2 2 9 4 1 6 0 8 1 8
0.870 0.830 0.830 0.910 0.935 0.880 0.900 0.900 0.845 0.895 0.855 0.585 0.575 0.670 0.615 0.650 0.650 0.650 0.650
0.920 0.940 0.905 0.905 0.750 0.795 0.750 0.785
Zoo 0.8750 0.9250 0.4000 0.6000 0.8950
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0.848 0.946 0.970 0.970 0.965 0.96087 0.967 0.616 0.723 0.741 0.845 0.943 0.560 0.513 0.535 0.553 0.672 0.672 0.672 0.672
0.891 0.856 0.910 0.886 0.650 0.696 0.685 0.735
KrVsKpEW 0.8513 0.6964 0.6416 0.9218
2 8 3 3 6 6 1 6 0 8 1 7 4 3 1 5 9 9 9 9 9 8 3 5 1 2 1 1
Wave- 0.776 0.791 0.763 0.815 0.824 0.802 0.758 0.778 0.791 0.355 0.464 0.468 0.606 0.806 0.797 0.791 0.790 0.703 0.611 0.602 0.622
0.7509 0.8295 NA NA NA NA 0.7743 NA NA NA NA
formEW 9 2 9 4 1 1 2 8 3 0 0 0 0 5 3 9 0 8 9 5 2
Summary 0 9 1 10 2 3 5 10 2 6 2 5 2 3 9 5 5 5 6 5 0 0 1 19 3 3 6 9 5 7 5 5
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 38 of 46

UPTOHERE The performance summary for all the methods showed that the BWOA
algorithm operated with optimal classification accuracy on 10 datasets with 100 popula-
tion size, while population sizes 25, 50 and 75 showed 0, 9 and 1 optimal classifications,
respectively. The BPSO method demonstrated that using the population size of 100 re-
sulted in 10 datasets performing very well. In contrast, the population sizes 25, 50 and 75
were only able to obtain the best performances, 2, 3 and 5, respectively. Similarly, we ob-
served that the BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, and BSNDO obtained their best classification accu-
racy using the population sizes of 50, 75, 75, and 100 on 6, 9, 6, and 19 datasets, respec-
tively. The BEOSA and BIEOSA methods obtained their best classification accuracy when
the population sizes of 100 and 50 were used such that they both gave such best on 9 and
7 datasets, respectively. Meanwhile, BEOSA showed that using a population size of 25
and 50 will impair the performance, indicating that increased population size supports
the improvement of the performance of the algorithm.
The classification accuracy curves for the Zoo, Vote, Wine, Sonar, Tic-tac-toe, M-of-
n, Ionosphere, Exactly, Exactly2, HeatEW, CongressEW, Lymphography, Colon,
BreastEW, and SpectEW datasets on the BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO,
BEOSA, and BIEOSA are analyzed for further understanding of performance differences.
The plots for classification curve analysis are presented in Figure 7. The curves of all the
methods on the Zoo dataset showed that BEOSA and BIEOSA performed better than any
of the other methods. Similarly, we observed that the BEOSA method performed well on
Vote, Wine, Sonar, Tic-tac-toe, HeartEW, CongressEW, BreastEW and SpectEW datasets.
Using the M-of-n, Ionosphere, Exactly, and Exactly2 datasets, the BEOSA and BIEOSA
methods demonstrated strong competition with the BPSO method while outperforming
the remaining methods.
The classification accuracy for the Zoo dataset on each of the algorithms shows that
the BDMO curve runs from 0.59 and ends at 0.61 with a peak at 0.66. BSNDO had a straight
curve on 0.65. BIEOSA started from 0.75, peaked at 0.79 and ended at 0.78, BWOA started
from 0.87, deep at 078 and ended at the same 0.78, BGWO started from 0.90 peaked and
dipped at 0.85 and 0.89 respectively, and ended at 0.86. BPSO and BEOSA top the plots
with their curves starting from 0.91 and 0.92 and ending at 0.88 and 0.91, respectively. For
the Vote dataset, BDMO rose from 0.775 to 0.825, and BIEOSA started from 0.840, peaked
at 0.875 and ended below 0.825. BGWO rose from above 0.850 and terminated above 0.875,
while BWOA started from 0.875 and rose slightly to 0.880. BPSO and BSNDO both started
just above 0.925 and ended at 0.935 and 0.925, respectively. BEOSA tops the graph by
peaking just above 0.950. The performance of Wine and Sonar are similar, with the BDMO
method running at the bottom of the graphs of the two datasets starting from an average
accuracy value of 0.65 and ending at around 0.66, although the curve peaked above 0.70
for the Sonar dataset. BGWO started from around 0.75 for both Wine and Sonar, and
ended just below 0.75 and 0.78 respectively. BSNDO curves in both datasets run between
0.75, and BIEOSA similarly started just above 0.80 and ended just below 0.80 in both cases.
As a characteristic of BPSO and BEOSA, both algorithms peaked the graphs for Wine and
Sonar by starting from 0.88 and 0.94 on Wine, 0.83 and 0.82 on Sonar, then ending at 0.93
and 0.95 on Wine, and 0.88 and 0.86 on Sonar. The Tic-tac-toe dataset has BDMO at the
bottom and BEOSA at the top, starting from 0.61 and 0.74 and ending at 0.60 and 0.79,
respectively. BSNDO and BIEOSA ended their curves at around 0.64 but started at 0.63
and 0.65, respectively, while BWOA and BGWO started at the same point of 0.68 but
ended at 0.66 and 0.69, respectively. The performance for BPSO showed that it peaked
when the population size of 75 was used to obtain an accuracy value of 0.75.
Experimental results for M-of-n, Ionosphere and Exactly are consistent for BPSO
which tops the graphs of the three datasets by showing the lowest performance with pop-
ulation size 25 in all cases, but reported the best accuracies at 75, 50 and 75 population
sizes each at 0.87, 0.925, and 0.84 accordingly for three datasets. BDMO lies at the lowest
in M-of-n and Exactly but ranked second lowest in Ionosphere by obtaining its peaks at
0.61 for 75 population size, 0.810 for 75 population size, and 0.64 at 50 population size for
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 39 of 46

M-of-n, Ionosphere and Exactly, respectively. The BSNDO reported straight curves in the
three datasets. BIEOSA curves showed its peak classification accuracies at 0.74 using 100
population size, around 0.875 using 50 population size, 0.67 using 100 population size for
M-of-n, Ionosphere and Exactly. The BWOA and BGWO algorithms showed average per-
formances in the three datasets by obtaining their peak classification accuracy values of
0.79 and 0.80 at 50 and 75 population size with M-of-n, 0.845 and 0.835 both at 75 popula-
tion size with Ionosphere, and 0.67 and 0.69 at 50 and 75 population size with Exactly.
BEOSA obtain its best accuracy at 0.85 using 50 population size, 0.910 using 50 population
size, and 0.74 using 100 population size for M-of-n, Ionosphere and Exactly datasets, re-
spectively. The Exactly2 and HeartEW datasets showed that BSNDO results in the same
classification accuracy for all population sizes at around 0.580 and 0.480, respectively. This
is followed by BDMO, which obtained the best classification accuracies at 0.685 and 0.57
using 75 and 50 population sizes. The BWOA, BPSO and BIEOSA algorithms are seen to
overlap in performances on the two datasets, with each reporting peak accuracy at 0.725,
0.710, and 0.750 using 50, 25 and 25 population sizes on the Exactly2 dataset. Similarly,
BWOA, BPSO and BIEOSA showed their peak accuracies at 0.69 using 100, 100 and 25
population sizes. BPSO and BEOSA demonstrate a strong competitive performance by
having their peak accuracy values at around 0.750 in Exactly2 and 0.80 in HeartEW, in
both cases at 100 population size.
Results obtained for CongressEW, Lymphography and BreastEW datasets showed
that the BSNDO algorithm performances are almost similar for all population sizes at 0.63,
0.45, and 0.69, respectively. This is followed by the BDMO algorithm, which has its peak
accuracies at 0.82, 0.63, and 0.89 using population sizes 50, 75, and 25 on the three datasets.
The BIEOSA obtained its best classification accuracies at 0.90 using 100 population size,
0.69 using population size, and 0.91 using 75 population size for CongressEW Lympho-
graphy and BreastEW, respectively. BWOA and BGWO competed in performance as seen
on their curves in CongressEW Lymphography and BreastEW where BWOA had its best
accuracies at 0.93, 0.77, and 0.93 using 75, 50 and 50 population sizes. Similarly, BPSO and
BEOSA both peaked in performance by obtaining 0.95, between [0.8–0.9], and around 0.95,
all using 75 population size in the three datasets. We observed the curves on the Colon
and SpectEW datasets for all algorithms. In both cases, BDMO curves rank lowest at the
bottom of the graphs having its peak performances as 0.75 and 0.735, using 25 and 100
population sizes. BSNDO shows close flat curves in both datasets, and peak performances
averaged at 0.85 and 0.74 for Colon and SpectEW, respectively. In the SpectEW dataset,
BWOA, BIEOSA and BGWO all reported their peak performances at around 0.80 and us-
ing 100, 50, and 50 population sizes, while the same algorithms had different curve pat-
terns on Colon. For instance, BIEOSA peak accuracy is at 0.88 and 0.81 using 100 and 50
population size, BWOA peak accuracy is at 0.98 and close to 0.82 using 50 and 100 popu-
lation sizes, and BGWO peak accuracy is at 0.98 and 0.81 using 75 and 50 population size.
The summary of the results obtained for the classification accuracies on each algo-
rithm with respect to all datasets is consistent with the performance reported for cost func-
tion evaluation. BPSO and BEOSA algorithms are seen to perform very well compared
with other methods, but in most cases, the proposed BEOSA algorithm yields better per-
formance than BPSO. These consistent performances of BEOSA with regard to fitness
function evaluation, cost function evaluation, and classification accuracy for the selected
feature sizes confirm the relevance of the algorithm in solving the feature selection prob-
lem.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 40 of 46

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)

(g) (h)
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 41 of 46

(i) (j)

(k) (l)

(m) (n)

(o)
Figure 7. Graph-based comparative analysis of the classification accuracy performance for all binary
optimization methods on (a) Zoo; (b) Vote; (c) Wine; (d) Sonar; (e) Tic-tac-toe; (f) M-of-n; (g)
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 42 of 46

Ionosphere; (h) Exactly; (i) Exactly2; (j) HeatEW; (k) CongressEW; (l) Lymphography; (m) Colon,
(n) BreastEW; and (o) SpectEW datasets.

The performance superiority demonstrated by the BEOSA and BIEOSA methods in

this comparative analysis for this subsection reinforced the argument that the proposed
method is suitable for solving the feature selection problem. This finding is supported by
the fact the minimal and optimal number of features selected by the BEOSA and BIEOSA
methods were sufficient and determinant enough to yield the best classification accuracy.
In the following subsection, we investigate the impact of varying the choice of a classifier
and whether this choice influences the performance of the binary optimizer method.

5.4. Performance Evaluation of State-of-the-Art Classifiers on Methods

The classification accuracy analysis applied for the comparative analysis discussed
in the previous subsection uses the KNN method. This subsection presents our investiga-
tion regarding whether using a different classifier from the list of existing state-of-the-art
classifiers would improve the classification accuracy of the optimizers. Table 6 lists the
comparative analysis of the influence of different classifiers is presented using the M-of-n
dataset as a sample solution. The KNN, random forest (RF), MLP, decision tree (DTree),
SVM, and Gaussian naïve Bayes (GNB) classifiers were compared using the accuracy, pre-
cision, recall, F1-score and area under curve (AUC) metrics.
The classification accuracy for KNN, RF, MLP, DTree, SVM, and GNB classifiers for
BEOSA and BIEOSA were 0.815, 0.835, 0.84, 0.795, 0.845, and 0.83, 0.935, 0.665, 0.67, 0.67,
0.67, and 0.67 respectively. Results showed that the SVM and KNN worked well for the
BEOSA and BIEOSA by obtaining classification accuracy of 0.845 and 0.935 for the SVM
and KNN respectively. The most competing method, the BPSO algorithm, showed that
the MLP and SVM classifiers are more suitable for obtaining better classification accuracy
when compared with other classifiers. For precision-recall, F1-score and AUC, the values
of 0.875, 1, 0.933333, and 0.993132 were obtained for the BEOSA, while the values of 1,
0.866667, 0.928571, and 1 were obtained for BIEOSA using the SVM and KNN classifiers
respectively. This result confirms that when a classifier produces a good classification re-
sult on a binary optimizer, that classifier has a tendency to improve the results of the pre-
cision, recall, F1-score and area under curve (AUC) metrics as well.

Table 6. The classification accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score and area under curve (AUC) report
for the M-of-n datasets using KNN, random forest (RF), MLP, Decision Tree (DTree), SVM, and
Gaussian naïve Bayes (GNB) classifiers on the BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO,
BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms.

Algorithm Classifier Accuracy Precision Recall F1-Score AUC

KNN 0.665 0.7 0.785714 0.733333 0.770667
RF 0.71 0.714286 0.666667 0.666667 0.805333
MLP 0.685 0.666667 0.8 0.727273 0.821333
BWOA
DTree 0.72 0.8 0.533333 0.64 0.766667
SVM 0.71 0.777778 0.6 0.642857 0.826667
GNB 0.72 0.714286 0.666667 0.689655 0.832
KNN 0.905 0.846154 0.866667 0.785714 0.90522
RF 0.99 0.923077 0.866667 0.857143 0.976648
MLP 1 1 1 1 1
BPSO
DTree 0.79 0.818182 0.666667 0.714286 0.741333
SVM 1 1 1 1 1
GNB 0.955 1 0.8 0.888889 1
KNN 0.69 0.529412 0.6 0.5625 0.741333
BSFO
RF 0.725 0.666667 0.6 0.56 0.704
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 43 of 46

MLP 0.725 0.857143 0.533333 0.551724 0.74

DTree 0.74 0.916667 0.733333 0.814815 0.898667
SVM 0.74 0.916667 0.733333 0.814815 0.850667
GNB 0.74 0.916667 0.733333 0.814815 0.882667
KNN 0.675 0.8 0.571429 0.666667 0.826923
RF 0.71 0.7 0.666667 0.666667 0.834667
MLP 0.705 0.727273 0.533333 0.615385 0.805333
BGWO
DTree 0.755 0.857143 0.6 0.642857 0.8
SVM 0.755 0.857143 0.733333 0.758621 0.806667
GNB 0.755 0.777778 0.666667 0.689655 0.846154
KNN 0.6 0.692308 0.866667 0.684211 0.821333
RF 0.725 0.705882 0.866667 0.75 0.889333
MLP 0.725 0.705882 0.8 0.75 0.881333
BDMO
DTree 0.725 0.75 0.533333 0.615385 0.817333
SVM 0.725 0.75 0.533333 0.615385 0.897333
GNB 0.725 0.75 0.866667 0.774194 0.865333
KNN 1 0.909091 0.866667 0.866667 0.970667
RF 1 1 1 1 1
MLP 1 1 1 1 1
BSNDO
DTree 0.775 1 0.533333 0.666667 0.805333
SVM 1 1 1 1 1
GNB 0.96 1 1 1 1
KNN 0.815 0.866667 0.928571 0.896552 0.98489
RF 0.835 1 0.928571 0.896552 0.95467
MLP 0.84 0.9 0.928571 0.896552 0.971154
BEOSA
DTree 0.795 0.9 0.714286 0.769231 0.896978
SVM 0.845 0.875 1 0.933333 0.993132
GNB 0.83 0.928571 0.928571 0.928571 0.995879
KNN 0.935 1 0.866667 0.928571 1
RF 0.665 0.538462 0.5 0.518519 0.748626
MLP 0.67 0.583333 0.466667 0.482759 0.712912
BIEOSA
DTree 0.67 0.545455 0.533333 0.5 0.717033
SVM 0.67 0.7 0.533333 0.583333 0.843407
GNB 0.67 1 0.666667 0.571429 0.769231

To provide a broader view of the performance of the KNN, RF, MLP, DT, SVM and
GNB classifiers with population sizes of 25, 50, 75 and 100, we plotted graphs to show
how the BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms
performed. Figure 8 shows the results of the comparisons carried out using the
CongressEW dataset as a sample. The BWOA algorithm performed well with SVM, BPSO
performed well with KNN, BFSO performed well with MLP, BGWO performed well with
RF, BDMO performed well with GNB, BSNDO performed well with GNB, SVM, MLP and
RF, BEOSA performed well with KNN and BIEOSA performed well with SVM. These
performance differences are a strong indication that research on the use of a binary
optimizer to solve feature selection must not be limited to the performance of the
optimizer alone, but rather, that efforts must be made to select a fitting classifier as well.
Interestingly, we found that KNN and SVM, which are known to work well with most
classification tasks, showed good performance with the proposed BEOSA and BIEOSA
methods.
The experimental results for the five classifiers using the CongressEW dataset with
the BWOA algorithm showed that the classification accuracies of GNB and KNN were
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 44 of 46

around 0.90 for a population size of 25, rising to a peak at 0.94 and 0.93 with a population
size of 75. RF and SVM yielded the same value, i.e., 0.93, with a population size of 25 but
peaked at around 0.96 with a population size of 75. In the middle of the curves is MLP
curve, which has its peak classification value at 0.94 with a population size of 75; its lowest
reported value was 0.84, with a population size of 50. With BFSO and BGWO, KNN, RF,
MLP, DT, SVM and GNB achieved classification accuracies of 0.86, 0.92, 0.94, 0.86, 0.89,
and 0.88 with a population size 50, and 0.935, 0.968, 0.949, 0.956, 0.962 and 0.953 with a
population size of 50. In contrast, KNN achieved the best performance with a population
size of 75. The graph plots for BDMO and BIEOSA demonstrate another interesting aspect
of their performance, i.e., all classifiers in each case peaked and deepened with a
population size of 50. For instance, for BDMO, all the classifiers peaked with a population
size of 75 with classification accuracies 0.781, 0.80, 0.801, 0.822 and 0.82 for KNN, RF, MLP,
DT, SVM and GNB, resprectively. BIEOSA yielded the best classification accuracies for all
classifiers with a population size of 25, showing values just above 0.925 for KNN, around
0.950 for MLP, DT and SVM, and around 0.975 for RF and GNB. BSNDO obtained curves
running consistently at 0.805 for RF, MLP, DT, SVM and GNB, but obtained
approximately 0.76 for all population sizes using the KNN classifier. With BPSO and
BEOSA, KNN peaked with a population size of 100 and 75 at 0.989 and 0.0650 accuracies,
while GNB peaked at 0.95 and around 0.9540 with a population size of 50 for BPSO and
BEOSA. SVM obtained its peak performance at values of 0.959 and 0.9575 on BPSO and
BEOSA with population sizes of 100 and 50. With BPSO and BEOSA, MLP peaked with
population sizes of 100 and 75 at 0.96 and around 0.9525, while RF peaked at 0.959 and
0.9575 with population sizes of 50 and 75 for BPSO and BEOSA. DT peaked with a similar
accuracy to that reported for GNB.
Figure 9 shows the performance of the BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO,
BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA algorithms with the SpectEW dataset, providing the
classification accuracies of the KNN, RF, MLP, DT, SVM, and GNB classifiers. From the
plots shown in the figure, it can be seen that the best classification accuracies were
obtained with population sizes of 25, 50, 75, and 100 for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO,
BDMO, BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA using SVM, KNN, SVM (also DT and KNN), MLP,
RF, KNN, KNN and RF. The result also showed that for BPSO, BSFO and BIEOSA, the
best performance of their respective classifiers was obtained with a population size of 100.
In contrast, BSFO, BDMO, BSNDO and BEOSA obtained their best classification accuracy
with a population size of 25 using their respective classifiers. We note that BSFO and
BGWO also performed well with a population size of 75, while BWOA did well with a
population size of 50.
The performance of BWOA with the SpectEW dataset showed that most classifiers
achieved their peak accuracies with a population size of 50, except for GNB, which
obtained its best output with a population size of 100, albeit at a much lower value of 0.64.
Meanwhile, KNN, RF, MLP, DT and SVM obtained values of 0.87, 0.84, 0.84, 0.79 and 0.89,
respectively. BPSO showed an interesting result when a population size of 50 was used,
with all classifiers converging at a classification accuracy of 0.79 as their lowest values.
Interestingly, their best accuracies also occurred with a population size of 100, with KNN
yielding 0.89, RF 0.83, MLP 0.84, DT 0.80, SVM0.79 and GNB 0.73. The BSFO algorithm is
unique, as it showed reccurring overlap with most of the classifiers, as can be seen with
GNB and DT, whose maximum accuracy values were 0.75 with a population size of 75,
while others also peaked at that point but with a classification accuracy of 0.8. Meanwhile,
differentiated classification accuracies were observed for all classifiers when using the
BGWO algorithm. The RF and GNB classifiers obtained their best performance with a
population size of 50, i.e., 0.83 and 0.7. SVM, KNN, DT and MLP obtained their best
accuracies, i.e., 0.82, 0.81, 0.79 and 0.88, with a population size of 75. For BDMO and
BSNDO, KNN, RF, MLP, DT, SVM and GNB achieved their best performance as follows:
0.71 with a population size of 75; 0.82 with a population size of 25; 0.8 with a population
size of 50; 0.86 with a population size of 25; and 0.53 with a population size of 75. The
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 45 of 46

other algorithms yielded 0.83 with a population size of 75, 0.85 with a population size of
25 and 0.80 with a population size of 50 for KNN, RF, MLP, DT, SVM and GNB. We
compared BEOSA and BIEOSA and found a large degree of variance. For instance,
whereas KNN obtained its best value, i.e., 0.83, with a population size of 75 with BEOSA,
for BIEOSA, the same classifier yielded a value of 0.98 with a population size of 25.
Additionally, RF peaked at 0.85 with a population size of 100 and 0.89 with a population
size of 25 in BEOSA and BIEOSA. MLP obtained its best values, i.e., 0.85 and 0.89, with a
population size of 25 on BEOSA and BIEOSA, respectively. DT dipped in BIEOSA at an
accuracy value of 0.78 with a population size of 100, but peaked in BEOSA with an
accuracy of 0.85 with a population size of 25. SVM showed a good performance with
BIEOSA, achieving an accuracy of 0.89 with a population size of 25, whereas with BEOSA,
it achieved its best value, i.e., 0.80, with all population sizes. GNB performed better on
BEOSA, with an accuracy of 0.85 with a population size of 25, but obtained 0.79 on
BIEOSA with a population size of 100.
A comparative analysis of the plots of the CongressEW and SpectEW datasets
showed that the performance of BEOSA on all of the classifiers was outstanding, standing
shoulder-to-shoulder with BPSO and significantly outperforming BWOA, BSFO, BGWO,
BSNDO, and BDMO. We note that the proposed method proved itself to be well-rounded
and robust. Moreover, the good classification performance, derived from the number of
features selected by the BEOSA, further confirms the applicability of the method to find
the best number of required features, even in real-life problems. Additionally, the fitness
function and cost function values were impressive for BEOSA and its variant BIEOSA.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 41 of 46

(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 42 of 46

(g) (h)
Figure 8. Classification accuracy of the KNN, RF, MLP, decision tree, SVM, and Naïve Bayes models with population sizes of 25, 50, 75, and 100 using the (a)
BWOA, (b) BPSO, (c) BSFO, (d) BGWO, (e) BDMO, (f) BSNDO, (g) BEOSA, and (h) BIEOSA algorithms wih the CongressEW dataset.

(a) (b) (c)

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 43 of 46

(d) (e) (f)

(g) (h)
Figure 9. Classification accuracy of the KNN, RF, MLP, decision tree, SVM and Naïve Bayes models with population sizes of 25, 50, 75, and 100, using the (a)
BWOA, (b) BPSO, (c) BSFO, (d) BGWO, (e) BDMO, (f) BSNDO, (g) BEOSA and (h) BIEOSA algorithms with the SpectEW dataset.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 44 of 46

The experiment using different classifiers in this study has shown that the choice of
a classifier with a binary optimizer must be made carefully based on empirical investiga-
tion when such hybrid models are being deployed to address real-life problems. Having
compared the performance of BEOSA with other related methods using the values ob-
tained for fitness and cost functions, the average number of selected features and classifi-
cation accuracy, in the following subsection, we compare the computational runtime re-
quired for each of the algorithms.

5.5. Computational Time Analysis

Computational resources, especially computational time, often play a pivotal role in
the choice of an algorithm in time constrained applications. However, in cases where com-
putational time is not a constraint, the selection of an algorithm is often based purely on
performance. This subsection compares the computational time obtained for the binary
optimizers considered in this study. Table 7 outlines the performance of all the algorithms
with respect to each of the applied benchmark datasets.
The computational time of BSNDO was abnormally distributed. However, we found
that BWOA showed reduced computational time for the BreastEW, CongressEW, Exactly,
Iris, Exactly2, Ionosphere, Sonar, SpectEW, Tic-tac-toe, Vote, Wine, Zoo and KrVsKpEW
datasets. BSPO performed best on the Lymphography dataset, while BDMO reported a
reasonable computational time with the HeartEW and M-of-n datasets. The proposed
method, BEOSA, demonstrated minimal computational time with the Leukemia and Co-
lon datasets.

Table 7. Comparative analysis of the computational times of BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO,
BSNDO, BEOSA, and BIEOSA.

Dataset BWOA BPSO BSFO BGWO BDMO BSNDO BEOSA BIEOSA

BreastEW 2863.07 5716.95 15,231.68 3284.61 4693.94 0.05 7755.12 7143.08
Lung 10,836.27 6407.44 NA 13,519.02 21,901.97 0.06 27,005.21 27,469.88
CongressEW 2494.41 3293.75 21,216.45 2911.41 3167.04 0.05 3681.29 3439.88
Exactly 4238.07 5576.70 37,823.17 4967.03 5139.55 0.05 6135.80 5239.17
Iris 1539.72 1569.79 0.0300 1248.06 2454.02 0.05 3638.87 4367.40
Exactly2 4894.75 5460.21 84,742.30 5886.60 5831.48 0.05 5629.12 5949.60
HeartEW 5991.47 6180.32 11,961.87 6103.14 4953.76 0.05 8289.17 7775.06
Ionosphere 2425.15 5192.26 26,648.48 2711.81 4576.30 0.06 6795.18 5838.63
Prostate 13,996.86 23,715.34 0.0500 19,962.22 18,691.10 0.05 14,753.88 14,729.31
Lymphography 7088.64 4101.17 15,660.77 3363.44 4113.92 24,995.09 6342.72 6345.36
M-of-n 3377.35 4705.02 56,589.18 4243.87 4042.42 0.05 5927.31 4770.37
Leukemia 12,557.96 15,367.75 NA 15,879.91 14,626.92 0.05 10,973.17 13,082.37
PenglungEW 972.86 1186.14 7022.13 1027.13 1057.12 1613.04 1570.83 1238.32
Sonar 2478.74 3265.90 23,013.84 2694.13 4308.82 0.06 4640.60 4789.33
SpectEW 2809.20 3386.75 15,919.29 3107.25 3314.52 0.04 4389.90 4118.12
Colon 9003.78 10,541.57 NA 11,003.80 10,026.80 0.06 8971.40 9562.65
Tic-tac-toe 7769.29 9578.16 54,646.60 8591.51 7463.63 0.05 13,032.30 10,677.70
Vote 2430.62 2837.52 24,196.79 2561.77 2947.24 0.05 4046.51 4197.18
Wine 2774.64 4566.93 19,463.48 3309.42 5377.52 0.05 7005.92 8468.67
Zoo 2013.56 2427.55 8370.56 2118.25 2465.75 0.05 3384.51 3437.60
KrVsKpEW 8482.48 17,028.06 173,356.6 12,685.90 20,658.05 0.07 25,079.98 18,698.16
WaveformEW 17,449.58 32,664.62 NA 21,421.47 22,591.37 NA 26,812.95 27,680.63

Figure 10 shows a graphical illustration of the distribution of the computational time

for each dataset with respect to all of the tested binary optimization methods. The figure
shows that with most binary optimizer algorithms, BSFO often demanded the most com-
putation time, followed by BDMO and then BIEOSA. BSNDO and BGWO were shown to
require less computation runtime. The implication of this is that the proposed BEOSA
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 45 of 46

algorithm achieved outstanding performance with an average computational time com-

pared with those of the other binary optimizers.

Figure 10. Comparison of the computational times for BWOA, BPSO, BSFO, BGWO, BDMO,
BSNDO, BEOSA and BIEOSA on all the benchmark datasets.

5.6. Discussion of Findings

As corroborated by the obtained results and discussed in detail in previous sub-sec-
tions, this study may conclude that the proposed BEOSA method demonstrated very
promising performance on all benchmark datasets. We have shown that this method pro-
duced the optimal average number of selected features on each of the tested datasets. Fur-
thermore, we discovered that the popular classifiers KNN, MLP, SVM, GNB and RF were
relevant in terms of supporting the performance of binary optimizers. This motivates de-
signers of binary optimizers to investigate which state-of-the-art classifier is suitable for
supporting particular wrapper-based feature selection and classification tasks. Moreover,
when a classifier impedes the performance of a binary optimizer, it diminishes the im-
portance of using the algorithm for optimization purposes. Hence, deploying such binary
optimizers to real problems must be accompanied by the selection of an appropriate clas-
sifier. The average numbers of feature selected for all datasets using the proposed BEOSA
demonstrated that the algorithm is suitable for maximizing the cost function and mini-
mizing the fitness function. Our findings also confirm that the novel method used for ap-
plying the S-functions and V-functions enhanced the performance of the proposed
method.
Research on the optimization of the number of selected features for classification op-
erations is aimed at obtaining the best optimizer. It is expected that such an optimizer will
advance research in the field by ensuring that while classification accuracy is maximized,
the number of features must be as low as possible. This demonstrates the increasing need
for new algorithms which are capable of solving this multi-objective function. The algo-
rithm proposed in this study satisfies this condition, since the two objectives were
achieved. Moreover, we noted that BEOSA also improved the fitness and cost function
values; these functions are pivotal when justifying the relevance of a binary optimizer in
terms of selecting the optimal number of features required to obtain the best classification
result. Furthermore, this study provides a wealth of experimental results, i.e.,
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 46 of 46

comparisons of the performance of different classifiers with several binary optimizers. We

found this to be very rare in the literature and, as such, we hope that our work will benefit
the community of researchers in the field.

6. Conclusions
This study presents the design of binary variants of the EOSA and IEOSA algorithms,
referred to as the BEOSA and BIEOSA optimizers. Using models to represent the binary
search space and an optimization process to change from a continuous to a discrete search
space, the study shows that the new methods are suitable. Furthermore, we investigated
the performance impact of using different transfer functions in the exploitation and ex-
ploration of two S-functions and two V-functions. Exhaustive experimentation was car-
ried out using over 20 datasets with a wide range of heterogeneous features, and a com-
parative analysis was made with the BDMO, BSNDO, BPSO, BWOA, BSFO and BGWO
methods. The performance outcomes showed that both BEOSA and BIEOSA performed
reasonably well with most of the datasets and demonstrated competitive results with the
others. This evaluation was shown using the values obtained for the fitness and cost func-
tion and the number of selected features. Furthermore, the study examined the impact of
the choice of classifier used for feature classification purposes with respect to the opti-
mizer. The findings showed that KNN and SVM performed the feature classification tasks
exceptionally well. Meanwhile, a comparative analysis of the runtime and a statistical
analysis of the methods were also reported. The results showed that significant perfor-
mance improvements could be achieved when the transfer functions were skillfully for-
mulated and applied. This finding was supported by the fact that the separation of ap-
plicability of the S-function from the V-function in the exploration and exploitation phases
enhanced the performance of the algorithm. This study advances research in this domain
through a novel demonstration, i.e., using different transfer functions in the search pro-
cess involving the exploration and intensification phase. Moreover, the formulation of
new transfer functions adds to the novelty of the proposed binary methods. One limitation
with the study is associated with the performance of the immunity-based method, IEOSA,
whose binary variant was unable to compete with other methods, in contrast with BEOSA,
which yielded similar results to other state-of-the-art classifiers. This limitation will re-
quire further fine-tuning to enhance the algorithm. In future, we propose investigating
the use of competing optimization algorithms as a hybrid solution with the BEOSA and
BIEOSA methods. This is motivated by the need to capitalize upon the advantages of other
methods in order to reduce the limitations of the base EOSA method. Future research op-
portunities with respect to the proposed method may be centred on using deep learning-
based feature extraction and classification procedures. This could possibly result in an
outstanding hybrid model, which, to date, no study has considered. Another future work
is to investigate the possibility of swapping the usage of the S-function and V-function
and to compare the performance with that described in this study.

Author Contributions: Contributed to the conception and design of the research work, Material
preparation, experiments, and analysis, O.A., O.N.O. and A.E.E. All authors have read and agreed
to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Code availability (software application or custom code): All codes used are available online at their
indicated references.
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12, 11787 47 of 46

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