Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms are among the most prominent and successful techniques for solving computationally difficult problems. Offering a systematic treatment of SLS algorithms, this book examines the general concepts and specific instances of SLS algorithms and considers their development, analysis and application.
This book is the first comprehensive tutorial on matheuristics. Matheuristics are based on mathematical extensions of previously known heuristics, mainly metaheuristics, and on original, area-specific approaches. This tutorial provides a detailed discussion of both contributions, presenting the pseudocodes of over 40 algorithms, abundant literature references, and for each case a step-by-step description of a sample run on a common Generalized Assignment Problem example. C++ source codes of all algorithms are available in an associated SW repository.
An overview of the rapidly growing field of ant colony optimization that describes theoretical findings, the major algorithms, and current applications. The complex social behaviors of ants have been much studied by science, and computer scientists are now finding that these behavior patterns can provide models for solving difficult combinatorial optimization problems. The attempt to develop algorithms inspired by one aspect of ant behavior, the ability to find what computer scientists would call shortest paths, has become the field of ant colony optimization (ACO), the most successful and widely recognized algorithmic technique based on ant behavior. This book presents an overview of this rapidly growing field, from its theoretical inception to practical applications, including descriptions of many available ACO algorithms and their uses. The book first describes the translation of observed ant behavior into working optimization algorithms. The ant colony metaheuristic is then introduced and viewed in the general context of combinatorial optimization. This is followed by a detailed description and guide to all major ACO algorithms and a report on current theoretical findings. The book surveys ACO applications now in use, including routing, assignment, scheduling, subset, machine learning, and bioinformatics problems. AntNet, an ACO algorithm designed for the network routing problem, is described in detail. The authors conclude by summarizing the progress in the field and outlining future research directions. Each chapter ends with bibliographic material, bullet points setting out important ideas covered in the chapter, and exercises. Ant Colony Optimization will be of interest to academic and industry researchers, graduate students, and practitioners who wish to learn how to implement ACO algorithms.
Many problems of enormous practical and theoretical importance are of combinatorial nature. Combinatorial problems are intriguing because they are easy to state but many of them are very difficult to solve they are NP-hard. Local search and extensions thereof based on metaheuristics, which have been developed at the interface between Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research, are among the best available techniques for obtaining high-quality solutions to large instances of NP-hard problems in a reasonable time. This book presents contributions to several research aspects of metaheuristics. The contributions concern (i) the introduction of a new methodology for analyzing the run-time behavior of metaheuristics and, in general, randomized algorithms, (ii) the derivation of improved algorithmic variants for known metaheuristics, in particular for ant colony optimization and iterated local search, (iii) the exploration of new applications of specific metaheuristics, and (iv) the characterization of the run-time behavior of specific metaheuristics. The achievements described in this book can be regarded as a further step towards achieving the goals of research on metaheuristics: the development of general and flexible, but at the same time powerful and efficient algorithms to approximately solve hard combinatorial problems.
Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms are among the most prominent and successful techniques for solving computationally difficult problems. Offering a systematic treatment of SLS algorithms, this book examines the general concepts and specific instances of SLS algorithms and considers their development, analysis and application.
An overview of the rapidly growing field of ant colony optimization that describes theoretical findings, the major algorithms, and current applications. The complex social behaviors of ants have been much studied by science, and computer scientists are now finding that these behavior patterns can provide models for solving difficult combinatorial optimization problems. The attempt to develop algorithms inspired by one aspect of ant behavior, the ability to find what computer scientists would call shortest paths, has become the field of ant colony optimization (ACO), the most successful and widely recognized algorithmic technique based on ant behavior. This book presents an overview of this rapidly growing field, from its theoretical inception to practical applications, including descriptions of many available ACO algorithms and their uses. The book first describes the translation of observed ant behavior into working optimization algorithms. The ant colony metaheuristic is then introduced and viewed in the general context of combinatorial optimization. This is followed by a detailed description and guide to all major ACO algorithms and a report on current theoretical findings. The book surveys ACO applications now in use, including routing, assignment, scheduling, subset, machine learning, and bioinformatics problems. AntNet, an ACO algorithm designed for the network routing problem, is described in detail. The authors conclude by summarizing the progress in the field and outlining future research directions. Each chapter ends with bibliographic material, bullet points setting out important ideas covered in the chapter, and exercises. Ant Colony Optimization will be of interest to academic and industry researchers, graduate students, and practitioners who wish to learn how to implement ACO algorithms.
This book is the first comprehensive tutorial on matheuristics. Matheuristics are based on mathematical extensions of previously known heuristics, mainly metaheuristics, and on original, area-specific approaches. This tutorial provides a detailed discussion of both contributions, presenting the pseudocodes of over 40 algorithms, abundant literature references, and for each case a step-by-step description of a sample run on a common Generalized Assignment Problem example. C++ source codes of all algorithms are available in an associated SW repository.
This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Engineering Stochastic Local Search Algorithms. Inside the volume, readers will find twelve full papers as well as nine short papers. Topics include methodological developments, behavior of SLS algorithms, search space analysis, algorithm performance, tuning procedures, AI/OR techniques, and dynamic behavior.
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