2,015 research outputs found
A Memetic Algorithm for the Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem
The generalized traveling salesman problem (GTSP) is an extension of the
well-known traveling salesman problem. In GTSP, we are given a partition of
cities into groups and we are required to find a minimum length tour that
includes exactly one city from each group. The recent studies on this subject
consider different variations of a memetic algorithm approach to the GTSP. The
aim of this paper is to present a new memetic algorithm for GTSP with a
powerful local search procedure. The experiments show that the proposed
algorithm clearly outperforms all of the known heuristics with respect to both
solution quality and running time. While the other memetic algorithms were
designed only for the symmetric GTSP, our algorithm can solve both symmetric
and asymmetric instances.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Natural Computing, Springer, available online:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/5v4568l492272865/?p=e1779dd02e4d4cbfa49d0d27b19b929f&pi=1
Iterative Patching and the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem
Although Branch and Bound (BnB) methods are among the most widely used techniques for solving hard problems, it is still a challenge to make these methods smarter. In this paper, we investigate iterative patching, a technique in which a fixed patching procedure is applied at each node of the BnB search tree for the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem. Computational experiments show that iterative patching results in general in search trees that are smaller than the usual classical BnB trees, and that solution times are lower for usual random and sparse instances. Furthermore, it turns out that, on average, iterative patching with the Contract-or-Patch procedure of Glover, Gutin, Yeo and Zverovich (2001) and the Karp-Steele procedure are the fastest, and that ?iterative? Modified Karp-Steele patching generates the smallest search trees.
Towards the Design of Heuristics by Means of Self-Assembly
The current investigations on hyper-heuristics design have sprung up in two
different flavours: heuristics that choose heuristics and heuristics that
generate heuristics. In the latter, the goal is to develop a problem-domain
independent strategy to automatically generate a good performing heuristic for
the problem at hand. This can be done, for example, by automatically selecting
and combining different low-level heuristics into a problem specific and
effective strategy. Hyper-heuristics raise the level of generality on automated
problem solving by attempting to select and/or generate tailored heuristics for
the problem at hand. Some approaches like genetic programming have been
proposed for this. In this paper, we explore an elegant nature-inspired
alternative based on self-assembly construction processes, in which structures
emerge out of local interactions between autonomous components. This idea
arises from previous works in which computational models of self-assembly were
subject to evolutionary design in order to perform the automatic construction
of user-defined structures. Then, the aim of this paper is to present a novel
methodology for the automated design of heuristics by means of self-assembly
- …