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min_util, ce is not an HUI. The TU of T3 is TU(T3) = u(ace, The field of bio-inspired computation attempts to replicate
T3) = 13, and the utilities of other transactions are shown in the way in which biological organisms and sub-organisms
the third column of Table 1. The TWU of an itemset ce is operate using abstract computing ideas from living
TWU(ce) = TU(T1) + TU(T3) +TU(T5) + TU(T8) + TU(T10) = phenomena or biological systems [15]. Generally speaking,
183; thus, ce is an HTWUI. bio-inspired computing optimizes a problem by iteratively
improving a candidate solution with regard to a given
TABLE 1. Example database. measure of quality. Biological systems provide abundant
inspiration for the construction of high-performance
Tid Transactions TU computing models and intelligent algorithms, enabling the
T1 (a, 1) (c, 18) (e, 1) 27
T2 (b, 6) (d, 1) (e, 1) (f, 1) 66
production of problem solving techniques with enhanced
T3 (a, 2) (c, 1) (e, 1) 13 robustness and flexibility under complex optimization
T4 (d, 1) (e, 1) 11 scenarios.
T5 (c, 4) (e, 2) 16
T6 (b, 1) (f, 1) 10
The GA [12] is a typical bio-inspired technique in which
T7 (b, 10) (d, 1) (e, 1) 101 each individual has a fitness value that indicates the quality
T8 (a, 3) (c, 25) (d, 3) (e, 1) 55 of the solution it represents. Three biologically inspired
T9 (a, 1) (b, 1) (f, 3) 15 operators (selection, crossover, and mutation) are applied to
T10 (b, 6) (c, 2) (e, 2) (f, 4) 72
give potentially better solutions. There are FIM and ARM
algorithms based on GA, such as GAMax [13] and NICGAR
TABLE 2. Profit table.
[24]. Kannimuthu and Premalatha proposed two GA-based
Item a b c d e f HUIM algorithms, HUPEUMU-GARM and HUPEWUMU-
Profit 3 9 1 5 6 1 GARM [14]. The difference between them is that
HUPEWUMU-GARM does not require the minimum utility
B. RELATED WORK threshold. In these algorithms, the selection, crossover, and
1) HUIM ALGORITHMS mutation operators are used iteratively to find HUIs. Because
As an extension of FIM, HUIM has become an active purely random crossover and mutation may produce itemsets
research problem in data mining. Many algorithms have been that are obviously distinct from the parents, the convergence
proposed for the mining of HUIs. speed may be low. Thus, both HUPEUMU-GARM and
The basic concepts of HUIM were outlined by Yao et al. HUPEWUMU-GARM give only limited results within a certain
[34], and the upper bound property was proposed to prune number of iterations.
the search space. The Two-Phase algorithm [23] was PSO [16] is another widely used bio-inspired algorithm.
developed to determine HUIs using the transaction-weighted Similar to the GA, PSO is a population-based approach for
downward-closure property, similar to the heuristic approach determining optimal solutions by adopting a velocity to
used in FIM [1]. In the Two-Phase algorithm, an HTWUI is update the particles. Unlike the GA, every particle
used as a superset of the set of HUIs, and only the supersets determines its velocity using the previous velocity, best
of the HTWUIs are processed further. Much like the Apriori previous position, and best previous position within its
algorithm for FIM, the main problem of the Two-Phase neighborhood. PSO has also been applied to ARM, for
algorithm is that too many candidates are generated and example, WARMSWARM [25] and MsP-MmPSO [7]. Lin
multiple database scans are required. To reduce the number et al. proposed two algorithms for mining HUIs based on
of candidates in the Two-Phase algorithm, Li et al. [18] PSO, HUIM-BPSOsig [22] and HUIM-BPSO [21].
proposed the strategy of discarding isolated items for HUIM. According to [21], HUIM-BPSO outperforms HUIM-
However, their approach still suffers from the same BPSOsig using an OR/NOR-tree structure.
drawbacks as the candidate generation-and-test scheme for BA [33] is a recently developed bio-inspired algorithm
determining HUIs. that uses the echolocation behavior of bats to solve
To generate candidates efficiently and avoid multiple optimization problems. Heraguemi et al. proposed the
database scans, the pattern-growth approach [9] and tree- BATARM algorithm for ARM [10]. In BATARM, the
based algorithms have been shown to be efficient for mining virtual bat motion models the ARM problem. The same
HUIs. Examples include IHUP-tree [2], UP-tree [30], and authors later proposed the multi-swarm cooperative bat
HUITWU-tree [8]. Although the associated tree structures are algorithm MSB-ARM [11]. The algorithm’s performance can
often compact, the performance of these methods is closely be improved by applying the ring strategy, master-slave
related to the number of conditional trees constructed, strategy, or a hybrid strategy. To the best of our knowledge,
resulting in significant memory requirements. the BA has not been applied to the mining of HUIs.
Other HUI mining algorithms include one based on Generally speaking, most existing HUIM techniques based
maximal itemsets [19], the projection-based approach [17], on bio-inspired mechanisms follow the routine of the
and a bitmap-based method [27]. standard bio-inspired algorithm. Thus, the search space is
further explored according to the optimal values of the
2) BIO-INSPIRED ALGORITHMS FOR ITEMSET MINING

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