Quick Combinatorial Artificial Bee Colony -qCABC- Optimization Algorithm for TSP

Combinatorial Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm (CABC) is a new version of Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) to solve combinatorial type optimization problems and quick Artificial Bee Colony (qABC) algorithm is an improved version of ABC in which the onlooker bees behavior is modeled in more detailed way. Studies showed that qABC algorithm improves the convergence performance of standard ABC on numerical optimization. In this paper, to see the performance of this new modeling way of onlookers' behavior on combinatorial optimization, we apply the qABC idea to CABC and name this new algorithm as quick CABC (qCABC). qCABC is tested on Traveling Salesman Problem and simulation results show that qCABC algorithm improves the convergence and final performance of CABC

Traveling Salesman Problem

The idea behind TSP was conceived by Austrian mathematician Karl Menger in mid 1930s who invited the research community to consider a problem from the everyday life from a mathematical point of view. A traveling salesman has to visit exactly once each one of a list of m cities and then return to the home city. He knows the cost of traveling from any city i to any other city j. Thus, which is the tour of least possible cost the salesman can take? In this book the problem of finding algorithmic technique leading to good/optimal solutions for TSP (or for some other strictly related problems) is considered. TSP is a very attractive problem for the research community because it arises as a natural subproblem in many applications concerning the every day life. Indeed, each application, in which an optimal ordering of a number of items has to be chosen in a way that the total cost of a solution is determined by adding up the costs arising from two successively items, can be modelled as a TSP instance. Thus, studying TSP can never be considered as an abstract research with no real importance

A tutorial for competent memetic algorithms: Model, taxonomy and design issues

The combination of evolutionary algorithms with local search was named "memetic algorithms" (MAs) (Moscato, 1989). These methods are inspired by models of natural systems that combine the evolutionary adaptation of a population with individual learning within the lifetimes of its members. Additionally, MAs are inspired by Richard Dawkin's concept of a meme, which represents a unit of cultural evolution that can exhibit local refinement (Dawkins, 1976). In the case of MA's, "memes" refer to the strategies (e.g., local refinement, perturbation, or constructive methods, etc.) that are employed to improve individuals. In this paper, we review some works on the application of MAs to well-known combinatorial optimization problems, and place them in a framework defined by a general syntactic model. This model provides us with a classification scheme based on a computable index D, which facilitates algorithmic comparisons and suggests areas for future research. Also, by having an abstract model for this class of metaheuristics, it is possible to explore their design space and better understand their behavior from a theoretical standpoint. We illustrate the theoretical and practical relevance of this model and taxonomy for MAs in the context of a discussion of important design issues that must be addressed to produce effective and efficient MAs