Framework for identifying the equivalence between Nature-Inspired Metaheuristics

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Hauptverfasser: Fister, Iztok, Hozjan, Žan, Fister, Jr., Iztok, Strnad, Damjan
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Fister, Iztok
Hozjan, Žan
Fister, Jr., Iztok
Strnad, Damjan
author_facet Fister, Iztok
Hozjan, Žan
Fister, Jr., Iztok
Strnad, Damjan
contents The domain of metaheuristic optimization has become vibrant due to a flood of new algorithms using a new nature-inspired metaphor but lacking clear methodological novelty. The Criticism behind the development of these algorithms has reached such an extent that the critics started to assert that all novel algorithms are only copies of already developed ones. In this study, we try to show that the situation is not so black and white. Therefore, we define a strong equivalence theorem for estimating the similarity between two nature-inspired metaheuristics, according to which two algorithms are equivalent if, and only if, the cosine similarity of their phenotypic and genotypic feature vectors, characterizing their behavior by searching for the optimal solutions, is above some threshold. On the theorem basis, a framework is developed for identifying the equivalence between nature-inspired metaheuristics. Extensive experimental work using the framework has shown that searching for conditions to achieve the high similarity of the more well-known nature-inspired metaheuristics is hard, or even not possible to achieve, in the limited computational environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28255
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Framework for identifying the equivalence between Nature-Inspired Metaheuristics
Fister, Iztok
Hozjan, Žan
Fister, Jr., Iztok
Strnad, Damjan
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
The domain of metaheuristic optimization has become vibrant due to a flood of new algorithms using a new nature-inspired metaphor but lacking clear methodological novelty. The Criticism behind the development of these algorithms has reached such an extent that the critics started to assert that all novel algorithms are only copies of already developed ones. In this study, we try to show that the situation is not so black and white. Therefore, we define a strong equivalence theorem for estimating the similarity between two nature-inspired metaheuristics, according to which two algorithms are equivalent if, and only if, the cosine similarity of their phenotypic and genotypic feature vectors, characterizing their behavior by searching for the optimal solutions, is above some threshold. On the theorem basis, a framework is developed for identifying the equivalence between nature-inspired metaheuristics. Extensive experimental work using the framework has shown that searching for conditions to achieve the high similarity of the more well-known nature-inspired metaheuristics is hard, or even not possible to achieve, in the limited computational environments.
title Framework for identifying the equivalence between Nature-Inspired Metaheuristics
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28255