With increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats and rising demand for network automation, autonomous cybersecurity mechanisms are becoming critical for securing modern networks. The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) systems amplifies these challenges, as resource-constrained IoT devices demand scalable and efficient security solutions. In this work, an innovative Intrusion Detection System (IDS) utilizing Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) and Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) is proposed for autonomous and optimized cyber-attack detection in modern networking environments. The proposed IDS framework integrates two primary innovative techniques: Optimized Importance and Percentage-based Automated Feature Selection (OIP-AutoFS) and Optimized Performance, Confidence, and Efficiency-based Combined Algorithm Selection and Hyperparameter Optimization (OPCE-CASH). These components optimize feature selection and model learning processes to strike a balance between intrusion detection effectiveness and computational efficiency. This work presents the first IDS framework that integrates all four AutoML stages and employs multi-objective optimization to jointly optimize detection effectiveness, efficiency, and confidence for deployment in resource-constrained systems. Experimental evaluations over two benchmark cybersecurity datasets demonstrate that the proposed MOO-AutoML IDS outperforms state-of-the-art IDSs, establishing a new benchmark for autonomous, efficient, and optimized security for networks. Designed to support IoT and edge environments with resource constraints, the proposed framework is applicable to a variety of autonomous cybersecurity applications across diverse networked environments.

Process-structure-property relationships are fundamental in materials science and engineering and are key to the development of new and improved materials. Symbolic regression serves as a powerful tool for uncovering mathematical models that describe these relationships. It can automatically generate equations to predict material behaviour under specific manufacturing conditions and optimize performance characteristics such as strength and elasticity. The present work illustrates how symbolic regression can derive constitutive models that describe the behaviour of various metallic alloys during plastic deformation. Constitutive modelling is a mathematical framework for understanding the relationship between stress and strain in materials under different loading conditions. In this study, two materials (age-hardenable aluminium alloy and high-chromium martensitic steel) and two different testing methods (compression and tension) are considered to obtain the required stress-strain data. The results highlight the benefits of using symbolic regression while also discussing potential challenges.

While Deep Learning (DL) experts often have prior knowledge about which hyperparameter settings yield strong performance, only few Hyperparameter Optimization (HPO) algorithms can leverage such prior knowledge and none incorporate priors over multiple objectives. As DL practitioners often need to optimize not just one but many objectives, this is a blind spot in the algorithmic landscape of HPO. To address this shortcoming, we introduce PriMO, the first HPO algorithm that can integrate multi-objective user beliefs. We show PriMO achieves state-of-the-art performance across 8 DL benchmarks in the multi-objective and single-objective setting, clearly positioning itself as the new go-to HPO algorithm for DL practitioners.

The open-pit mine scheduling problem (OPMSP) is a complex, computationally expensive process in long-term mine planning, constrained by operational and geological dependencies. Traditional deterministic approaches often ignore geological uncertainty, leading to suboptimal and potentially infeasible production schedules. Chance constraints allow modeling of stochastic components by ensuring probabilistic constraints are satisfied with high probability. This paper presents a bi-objective formulation of the OPMSP that simultaneously maximizes expected net present value and minimizes scheduling risk, independent of the confidence level required for the constraint. Solutions are represented using integer encoding, inherently satisfying reserve constraints. We introduce a domain-specific greedy randomized initialization and a precedence-aware period-swap mutation operator. We integrate these operators into three multi-objective evolutionary algorithms: the global simple evolutionary multi-objective optimizer (GSEMO), a mutation-only variant of multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D), and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). We compare our bi-objective formulation against the single-objective approach, which depends on a specific confidence level, by analyzing mine deposits consisting of up to 112 687 blocks. Results demonstrate that the proposed bi-objective formulation yields more robust and balanced trade-offs between economic value and risk compared to single-objective, confidence-dependent approach.

Multivariate time series data come as a collection of time series describing different aspects of a certain temporal phenomenon. Anomaly detection in this type of data constitutes a challenging problem yet with numerous applications in science and engineering because anomaly scores come from the simultaneous consideration of the temporal and variable relationships. In this paper, we propose a clustering-based approach to detect anomalies concerning the amplitude and the shape of multivariate time series. First, we use a sliding window to generate a set of multivariate subsequences and thereafter apply an extended fuzzy clustering to reveal a structure present within the generated multivariate subsequences. Finally, a reconstruction criterion is employed to reconstruct the multivariate subsequences with the optimal cluster centers and the partition matrix. We construct a confidence index to quantify a level of anomaly detected in the series and apply Particle Swarm Optimization as an optimization vehicle for the problem of anomaly detection. Experimental studies completed on several synthetic and six real-world datasets suggest that the proposed methods can detect the anomalies in multivariate time series. With the help of available clusters revealed by the extended fuzzy clustering, the proposed framework can detect anomalies in the multivariate time series and is suitable for identifying anomalous amplitude and shape patterns in various application domains such as health care, weather data analysis, finance, and disease outbreak detection.

This paper presents a novel approach to avoiding jackknifing and mutual collisions in Heavy Articulated Vehicles (HAVs) by leveraging decentralized swarm intelligence. In contrast to typical swarm robotics research, our robots are elongated and exhibit complex kinematics, introducing unique challenges. Despite its relevance to real-world applications such as logistics automation, remote mining, airport baggage transport, and agricultural operations, this problem has not been addressed in the existing literature. To tackle this new class of swarm robotics problems, we propose a purely reaction-based, decentralized swarm intelligence strategy tailored to automate elongated, articulated vehicles. The method presented in this paper prioritizes jackknifing avoidance and establishes a foundation for mutual collision avoidance. We validate our approach through extensive simulation experiments and provide a comprehensive analysis of its performance. For the experiments with a single HAV, we observe that for 99.8% jackknifing was successfully avoided and that 86.7% and 83.4% reach their first and second goals, respectively. With two HAVs interacting, we observe 98.9%, 79.4%, and 65.1%, respectively, while 99.7% of the HAVs do not experience mutual collisions.

As machine learning (ML) applications grow increasingly complex in recent years, modern ML frameworks often need to address multiple potentially conflicting objectives with coupled decision variables across different layers. This creates a compelling need for multi-objective bilevel learning (MOBL). So far, however, the field of MOBL remains in its infancy and many important problems remain under-explored. This motivates us to fill this gap and systematically investigate the theoretical and algorithmic foundation of MOBL. Specifically, we consider MOBL problems with multiple conflicting objectives guided by preferences at the upper-level subproblem, where part of the inputs depend on the optimal solution of the lower-level subproblem. Our goal is to develop efficient MOBL optimization algorithms to (1) identify a preference-guided Pareto-stationary solution with low oracle complexity; and (2) enable systematic Pareto front exploration. To this end, we propose a unifying algorithmic framework called weighted-Chebyshev multi-hyper-gradient-descent (WC-MHGD) for both deterministic and stochastic settings with finite-time Pareto-stationarity convergence rate guarantees, which not only implies low oracle complexity but also induces systematic Pareto front exploration. We further conduct extensive experiments to confirm our theoretical results.

Securing Dew-Enabled Edge-of-Things (EoT) networks against sophisticated intrusions is a critical challenge. This paper presents HybridGuard, a framework that integrates machine learning and deep learning to improve intrusion detection. HybridGuard addresses data imbalance through mutual information based feature selection, ensuring that the most relevant features are used to improve detection performance, especially for minority attack classes. The framework leverages Wasserstein Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks with Gradient Penalty (WCGAN-GP) to further reduce class imbalance and enhance detection precision. It adopts a two-phase architecture called DualNetShield to support advanced traffic analysis and anomaly detection, improving the granular identification of threats in complex EoT environments. HybridGuard is evaluated on the UNSW-NB15, CIC-IDS-2017, and IOTID20 datasets, where it demonstrates strong performance across diverse attack scenarios and outperforms existing solutions in adapting to evolving cybersecurity threats. This approach establishes HybridGuard as an effective tool for protecting EoT networks against modern intrusions.

In computational pathology, the gigapixel scale of Whole-Slide Images (WSIs) necessitates their division into thousands of smaller patches. Analyzing these high-dimensional patch embeddings is computationally expensive and risks diluting key diagnostic signals with many uninformative patches. Existing patch selection methods often rely on random sampling or simple clustering heuristics and typically fail to explicitly manage the crucial trade-off between the number of selected patches and the accuracy of the resulting slide representation. To address this gap, we propose EvoPS (Evolutionary Patch Selection), a novel framework that formulates patch selection as a multi-objective optimization problem and leverages an evolutionary search to simultaneously minimize the number of selected patch embeddings and maximize the performance of a downstream similarity search task, generating a Pareto front of optimal trade-off solutions. We validated our framework across four major cancer cohorts from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) using five pretrained deep learning models to generate patch embeddings, including both supervised CNNs and large self-supervised foundation models. The results demonstrate that EvoPS can reduce the required number of training patch embeddings by over 90% while consistently maintaining or even improving the final classification F1-score compared to a baseline that uses all available patches' embeddings selected through a standard extraction pipeline. The EvoPS framework provides a robust and principled method for creating efficient, accurate, and interpretable WSI representations, empowering users to select an optimal balance between computational cost and diagnostic performance.

Abstract--This paper introduces a novel framework for enhancing Random Forest classifiers by integrating probabilistic feature sampling and hyperparameter tuning via Simulated Annealing. The proposed framework exhibits substantial advancements in predictive accuracy and generalization, adeptly tackling the multifaceted challenges of robust classification across diverse domains, including credit risk evaluation, anomaly detection in IoT ecosystems, early-stage medical diagnostics, and high-dimensional biological data analysis. T o overcome the limitations of conventional Random Forests, we present an approach that places stronger emphasis on capturing the most relevant signals from data while enabling adaptive hyperparameter configuration. The model is guided towards features that contribute more meaningfully to classification and optimizing this with dynamic parameter tuning. The results demonstrate consistent accuracy improvements and meaningful insights into feature relevance, showcasing the efficacy of combining importance aware sampling and metaheuristic optimization. RFs are widely used ensemble learning methods known for their robustness, interpretability, scalability and performance across diverse machine learning tasks.