The slime mould algorithm (SMA) is a new swarm intelligence algorithm inspired by the oscillatory behavior of slime moulds during foraging. Numerous researchers have widely applied the SMA and its variants in various domains in the field and proved its value by conducting various literatures. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the SMA is introduced, which is based on 130 articles obtained from Google Scholar between 2022 and 2023. In this study, firstly, the SMA theory is described. Secondly, the improved SMA variants are provided and categorized according to the approach used to apply them. Finally, we also discuss the main applications domains of the SMA, such as engineering optimization, energy optimization, machine learning, network, scheduling optimization, and image segmentation. This review presents some research suggestions for researchers interested in this algorithm, such as conducting additional research on multi-objective and discrete SMAs and extending this to neural networks and extreme learning machining.

Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) is a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. In recent years, many scholars have proposed various metaheuristic algorithms to solve JSSP, playing an important role in solving small-scale JSSP. However, when the size of the problem increases, the algorithms usually take too much time to converge. In this paper, we propose a hybrid algorithm, namely EOSMA, which mixes the update strategy of Equilibrium Optimizer (EO) into Slime Mould Algorithm (SMA), adding Centroid Opposition-based Computation (COBC) in some iterations. The hybridization of EO with SMA makes a better balance between exploration and exploitation. The addition of COBC strengthens the exploration and exploitation, increases the diversity of the population, improves the convergence speed and convergence accuracy, and avoids falling into local optimum. In order to solve discrete problems efficiently, a Sort-Order-Index (SOI)-based coding method is proposed. In order to solve JSSP more efficiently, a neighbor search strategy based on a two-point exchange is added to the iterative process of EOSMA to improve the exploitation capability of EOSMA to solve JSSP. Then, it is utilized to solve 82 JSSP benchmark instances; its performance is evaluated compared to that of EO, Marine Predators Algorithm (MPA), Aquila Optimizer (AO), Bald Eagle Search (BES), and SMA. The experimental results and statistical analysis show that the proposed EOSMA outperforms other competing algorithms.

Strain optimization aims to overproduce valuable metabolites by leveraging an understanding of biological systems, including metabolic networks and gene regulatory networks (GRNs). Accordingly, researchers proposed integrating metabolic networks and GRNs to be analyzed simultaneously. The proposed algorithms from 2002 to 2021 were rFBA, SR-FBA, iFBA, PROM, PROM2.0, TIGER, BeReTa, CoRegFlux, IDREAM, TRFBA, OptRAM, TRIMER, and PRIME. Each algorithm has different characteristics. Thus, using the appropriate algorithm for designing strain optimization is essential. Therefore, a critical review was conducted by synthesizing and analyzing the existing algorithms. Five aspects are discussed in this review: the strategic approaches, model of GRNs, source of GRNs, optimization, supplementary methods, and the programming language used. Based on the review, several algorithms were better at modeling integrated regulatory-metabolic networks with high confidence, i.e., PROM, PROM2.0, and TRFBA. A simulation was applied to six strains. The results show that PROM2.0 best predicted the production rate and time complexity. However, the model is heavily influenced by the quality and quantity of the gene expression data. In addition, there are inconsistencies between GRNs and the gene expression data. Thus, this review also discussed future work based on GRNs and gene expression data.

The advances in genome sequencing and metabolic engineering have allowed the reengineering of the cellular function of an organism. Furthermore, given the abundance of omics data, data collection has increased considerably, thus shifting the perspective of molecular biology. Therefore, researchers have recently used artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to simulate and improve the reconstruction and analysis by identifying meaningful features from the large multiomics dataset. This review paper summarizes research on the hybrid of constraint-based models and machine learning algorithms in optimizing valuable metabolites. The research articles published between 2020 and 2023 on machine learning and constraint-based modeling have been collected, synthesized, and analyzed. The articles are obtained from the Web of Science and Scopus databases using the keywords: “Machine learning”, “flux balance analysis”, and “metabolic engineering”. At the end of the search, this review contained 13 records. This review paper aims to provide current trends and approaches in in silico metabolic engineering while providing research directions by highlighting the research gaps. In addition, we have discussed the methodology for integrating machine learning and constraint-based modeling approaches.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has experienced significant growth and plays a crucial role in daily activities. However, along with its development, IoT is very vulnerable to attacks and raises concerns for users. The Intrusion Detection System (IDS) operates efficiently to detect and identify suspicious activities within the network. The primary source of attacks originates from external sources, specifi-cally from the internet attempting to transmit data to the host network. IDS can identify unknown attacks from network traffic and has become one of the most effective network security. Classification is used to distinguish between normal class and attacks in binary classification problem. As a result, there is a rise in the false positive rates and a decrease in the detection accuracy during the model's training. Based on the test results using the ensemble technique with the ensemble learning XGBoost and LightGBM algorithm, it can be concluded that both binary classification problems can be solved. The results using these ensemble learning algorithms on the ToN IoT Dataset, where binary classification has been performed by combining multiple devices into one, have demonstrated improved accuracy. Moreover, this ensemble approach ensures a more even distribution of accuracy across each device, surpassing the findings of previous research.