Optimise Anything!

Introduction

"Optimise Anything!" is a web service that enables non-expert people to interactively utilize Bayesian optimization in the back end to solve optimization problems.

Access the service http://optimizeanything.dice.aalto.fi/

Paper and Authors list

Paper: link
Fengyu Li, Antti Oulasvirta, Aalto University, Finland
John Dudley, Per Ola Kristensson, University of Cambridge, UK
LiWei Chan, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

The project is built on the previous work on MOBO by L. Chan et. al¹, Y. -C. Liao et al.², and G. Mo³.

How to install

Step 1. Install Botorch

1. Go to

Step 2. Install Apache

Apache is used to run the program locally and so ensure you have XAMPP installed first before use. To run the program:

1. Download the files as a zip folder.
2. Copy the folder into htdocs within the xampp folder in your Local Disk.
3. Ensure the first line of the Python files in the cgi folder contains the file path to Python on your local system.
4. Click "Start" on the Apache module in the XAMPP Control Panel.
5. Copy the file path to the welcome.php page into a web browser using the following format: http://localhost/Demo/welcome.php where Demo is the filepath to welcome.php from the folder htdocs.
6. Follow the instructions and proceed with the application.

Front-end

The PHP files represent the front-end of the program. The sequence of pages is:

1. welcome.php: Welcome page
2. how-it-works.php: Brief overview of how the AI-user guided optimisation works
3. define.php: Page to define design parameters and design objectives
4. confirm-definitions.php: Confirmation of design definitions
5. existing-solutions.php: Known bad solutions can be added here
6. optimise.php: Solutions proposed by AI and evaluated by the user
7. results.php: Summary of best solutions evaluated

styles.css is the stylesheet used as the foundation for the pages. help.php offers an explanation of the key stages to the program (defining design parameters and objectives, adding existing solutions, optimisation, and results), and can be accessed via those respective pages.

Back-end

The cgi folder contains the Python scripts that form the back-end to the program. The purpose of each is listed below:

1. log-definitions.py: Saves and stores the design parameters and objectives to the SQL database Data\database.db after confirming the entries in confirm-definitons.php.
2. import-all.py: Contains all the relevant BoTorch modules and necessary parameters to be imported to perform the optimisation.
3. initial-mobo.py: The Python script where MOBO takes place. There are several functions that are implemented and executed depending on the user's choice: skip, give next solution or refine solution.
4. finish-solutions.py: The script is used to determine the best solutions from those evaluated by optimising for each objective respectively. It also gives the best solution that balances both objectives.

The cgi Python module is used to store the necessary variables and information to transfer between the server and client sides of the program.

Miscellaneous

The Archive folder includes previous copies of files for testing and reference purposes. The Pictures folder includes the images used in the front-end in the program.

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf - <Directory /var/www/OptimiseAnything/> Options +ExecCGI PassEnv LANG AddHandler cgi-script .py

nano /etc/apache2/conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf - Define ENABLE_USR_LIB_CGI_BIN

    <IfModule mod_cgid.c>
            Define ENABLE_USR_LIB_CGI_BIN
    </IfModule>

    <IfDefine ENABLE_USR_LIB_CGI_BIN>
            ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/OptimiseAnything/
            <Directory "/var/www/OptimiseAnything/">
                     AllowOverride None
                     Options +ExecCGI
                     AddHandler cgi-script. py 

            </Directory>
    </IfDefine>

How to solve file permissions issues:

https://medium.com/@rohan_precise/step-by-step-guide-setting-up-and-connecting-mysql-on-ec2-ubuntu-instance-72c627e6c27f https://askubuntu.com/questions/668734/the-requested-url-phpmyadmin-was-not-found-on-this-server

References

1. Chan, L. et al. (2022) ‘Investigating positive and negative qualities of human-in-the-loop optimization for designing interaction techniques’, CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems [Preprint]. doi:10.1145/3491102.3501850.
2. Y. -C. Liao et al., "Interaction Design With Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization," in IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 29-38, 1 Jan.-March 2023, doi: 10.1109/MPRV.2022.3230597.
3. Mo, G. D3MOBO, GitHub. Available at: https://github.com/georgemo535/D3MOBO.