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Feature extraction, feature clustering, feature selection are suitable to enhance learning performance, reduce computational complexity, create better generalizable models, and reduce required storage. Although there are several feature reduction techniques, still it remains one of the research hot spots in the field of data mining and machine learning groups. Owl search algorithm (OSA) is one of the recent metaheuristic optimization algorithms that mimic the hunting mechanism of owls in dark. However, OSA suffers from the same problem faced by many other optimization algorithms and tends to fall in local optima and premature convergence. To overcome these problems, two improvements for OSA algorithm are proposed in this paper. The first improvement uses a fuzzy system which is responsible to tune a control parameter in the updating phase of OSA. The second improvement includes the fuzzy system along with modifying the updating equation of OSA to enhance the exploration activity. In addition, this paper presents a new feature extraction technique for regression problems based on the improved OSA, called Fuzzy Owl Clustering Dimension Reduction (FOCDR). We apply a method that uses three weighting methods (i.e., soft, hard, and mixed) to extract new features based on the generated clusters. The experiment is divided into two parts. In the first part, the performance of the OSA algorithm and two improvement versions are analyzed with ten benchmark functions. The results show that the proposed versions on average can improve the convergence rate by 6.75% and 14.2% compared to OSA in solving complex problems. The second part is conducted to show FOCDR's ability for feature selection problems. The effectiveness of FOCDR has been evaluated using four benchmark datasets and a real-world case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection is an important component of the machine learning domain, which selects the ideal subset of characteristics relative to the target data by omitting irrelevant data. For a given number of features, there are 2n possible feature subsets, making it challenging to select the optimal set of features from a dataset via conventional feature selection approaches. We opted to investigate glaucoma infection since the number of individuals with this disease is rising quickly around the world. The goal of this study is to use the feature set (features derived from fundus images of benchmark datasets) to classify images into two classes (infected and normal) and to select the fewest features (feature selection) to achieve the best performance on various efficiency measuring metrics. In light of this, the paper implements and recommends a metaheuristics-based technique for feature selection based on emperor penguin optimization, bacterial foraging optimization, and proposes their hybrid algorithm. From the retinal fundus benchmark images, a total of 36 features were extracted. The proposed technique for selecting features minimizes the number of features while improving classification accuracy. Six machine learning classifiers classify on the basis of a smaller subset of features provided by these three optimization techniques. In addition to the execution time, eight statistically based performance metrics are calculated. The hybrid optimization technique combined with random forest achieves the highest accuracy, up to 0.95410. Because the proposed medical decision support system is effective and ensures trustworthy decision-making for glaucoma screening, it might be utilized by medical practitioners as a second opinion tool, as well as assist overworked expert ophthalmologists and prevent individuals from losing their eyesight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]