\input zb-basic \input zb-ioport \iteman{io-port 05522544} \itemau{Yan, Luo; Changrui, Yu} \itemti{A new hybrid algorithm for feature selection and its application to customer recognition.} \itemso{Dress, Andreas (ed.) et al., Combinatorial optimization and applications. First international conference, COCOA 2007, Xi'an, China, August 14--16, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin: Springer (ISBN 978-3-540-73555-7/pbk). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4616, 102-111 (2007).} \itemab Summary: This paper proposes a novel hybrid algorithm for feature selection. This algorithm combines a global optimization algorithm called the simulated annealing algorithm based nested partitions (NP/SA). The resulting hybrid algorithm NP/SA retains the global perspective of the nested partitions algorithm and the local search capabilities of the simulated annealing method. We also present a detailed application of the new algorithm to a customer feature selection problem in customer recognition of a life insurance company and it is found to have great computational efficiency and convergence speed. \itemrv{~} \itemcc{} \itemut{} \itemli{doi:10.1007/978-3-540-73556-4\_13} \end