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In this article, we introduce novel reinforced hybrid fuzzy rule-based neural networks (RHFNNs). This article is concerned with the development of the design methodologies of hybrid fuzzy rule-based model for constructing the network structure and enhancing its predictive abilities through the combination of inhomogeneous neurons [i.e., clustering-based polynomial neurons (CPNs) and polynomial neurons (PNs)] and tournament selection. The key points of the proposed RHFNN are enumerated as follows: The first layer of the proposed network consists of CPNs. CPN can effectively reflect the complex nonlinear structure encountered in the data space, and refine (granulate) it with the help of the clustering algorithm. Two types of CPNs including hard C-means (HCM) clustering-based polynomial neuron (HCPN) and fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering-based polynomial neuron (FCPN) are designed. According to the type of CPN used in the first layer, RHFNN can be categorized into two types, namely, RHFNN based on HCPN (HRHFNN) and RHFNN based on FCPN (FRHFNN). We use PNs to construct the second and consecutive layers. PN can identify and approximate the nonlinear relationship among system's inputs and outputs. A tournament-based performance selection (TPS) algorithm stemming from evolutionary computation is used for selection of neuron. TPS not only ensures that the candidate nodes have sufficient fitting ability but also enhances the individual diversity in the node set and provides the abilities to generate better prediction nodes. In addition, L2-norm regularization is considered to reduce the deviation between coefficients and ameliorate overfitting as well as boost generalization ability. The performance of RHFNN is discussed through a variety of publicly available machine learning datasets. From the experimental results, we conclude that RHFNN achieves the best prediction accuracy on 13 of 15 datasets; the statistical analysis also confirms the superiority of RHFNN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]