Experimental Evaluation of Interchangeability in Soft CSPs

In [8], Freuder defined interchangeability for classical Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Recently [2], we extended the definition of interchangeability to Soft CSPs and we introduced two notions of relaxation based on degradation # and on threshold # ( neighborhood interchangeability ( NI )and # neighborhood interchangeability (#NI )). In this pae

On the Computation of Local Interchangeability in Soft Constraint Satisfaction Problems

Freuder in (1991) de?ned interchangeability for classical Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Recently (2002), we extended the de?nition of interchangeability to Soft CSPs and we introduced two notions of relaxations based on degradation ? and on threshold ? (?neighborhood interchangeability (?NI )and ?neighborhood interchangeability ?NI ). In this paper we study the presence of these relaxed version of interchangeability in random soft CSPs. We give a description of the implementation we used to compute interchangeabilities and to make the tests. The experiments show that there is high occurrence of ?NI and ?NI interchangeability around optimal solution in Fuzzy CSP and weighted CSPs. Thus, these algorithms can be used succesfully in solution update applications. Moreover, it is also showed that NI interchangeability can well approximate full interchangeability (FI )

Interchangeability with thresholds and degradation factors for Soft CSPs

Substitutability and interchangeability in constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) have been used as a basis for search heuristics, solution adaptation and abstraction techniques. In this paper, we consider how the same concepts can be extended to soft constraint satisfaction problems (SCSPs). We introduce two notions: threshold alpha and degradation factor delta for substitutability and interchangeability, ( (alpha) substitutability/interchangeability and (delta) substitutability/interchangeabi-lity respectively). We show that they satisfy analogous theorems to the ones already known for hard constraints. In (alpha) interchangeability, values are interchangeable in any solution that is better than a threshold alpha, thus allowing to disregard differences among solutions that are not sufficiently good anyway. In (delta) interchangeability, values are interchangeable if their exchange could not degrade the solution by more than a factor of delta. We give efficient algorithms to compute ( (delta) / (alpha) )interchangeable sets of values for a large class of SCSPs, and show an example of their application. Through experimental evaluation based on random generated problem we measure first, how often neighborhood interchangeable values are occurring, second, how well they can approximate fully interchangeable ones, and third, how efficient they are when used as preprocessing techniques for branch and bound search

Interchangeability in Soft CSPs

Substitutability and interchangeability in constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) have been used as a basis for search heuristics, solution adaptation and abstraction techniques. In this paper, we consider how the same concepts can be extended to soft constraint satisfaction problems (SCSPs)

Experimental Evaluation of Interchangeability in Soft CSPs

Freuder in [9] defined interchangeability for classical Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Recently [2], we extended the definition of interchangeability to Soft CSPs and we introduced two notions of relaxations based on degradation # and on threshold # ( neighborhood interchangeability ( NI )and # neighborhood interchangeability (#NI ))

Experimental Evaluation of Interchangeability in Soft CSPs.

In [8], Freuder defined interchangeability for classical Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Recently [2], we extended the definition of interchangeability to Soft CSPs and we introduced two notions of relaxation based on degradation ? and on threshold ? ( ? neighborhood interchangeability ( ? NI)and ? neighborhood interchangeability ( ? NI)). In this paper we extend the study introduced in [11] and we analyze the presence of the relaxed version of interchangeability in random soft CSPs. We give a short description of the implementation we used to compute interchangeabilities and to make the tests. The experiments show that there is high occurrence of ? NI and ? NI interchangeability around optimal solution in fuzzy CSPs and weighted CSPs. Thus, these algorithms can be used successfully in solution update applications. Moreover, it is also showed that NI interchangeability can well approximate full interchangeability (FI)