2,284 research outputs found
Computational universes
Suspicions that the world might be some sort of a machine or algorithm
existing ``in the mind'' of some symbolic number cruncher have lingered from
antiquity. Although popular at times, the most radical forms of this idea never
reached mainstream. Modern developments in physics and computer science have
lent support to the thesis, but empirical evidence is needed before it can
begin to replace our contemporary world view.Comment: Several corrections of typos and smaller revisions, final versio
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Combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics
Today, combinatorial optimization is one of the youngest and most active areas of discrete mathematics. It is a branch of optimization in applied mathematics and computer science, related to operational research, algorithm theory and computational complexity theory. It sits at the intersection of several fields, including artificial intelligence, mathematics and software engineering. Its increasing interest arises for the fact that a large number of scientific and industrial problems can be formulated as abstract combinatorial optimization problems, through graphs and/or (integer) linear programs. Some of these problems have polynomial-time (âefficientâ) algorithms, while most of them are NP-hard, i.e. it is not proved that they can be solved in polynomial-time. Mainly, it means that it is not possible to guarantee that an exact solution to the problem can be found and one has to settle for an approximate solution with known performance guarantees. Indeed, the goal of approximate methods is to find âquicklyâ (reasonable run-times), with âhighâ probability, provable âgoodâ solutions (low error from the real optimal solution). In the last 20 years, a new kind of algorithm commonly called metaheuristics have emerged in this class, which basically try to combine heuristics in high level frameworks aimed at efficiently and effectively exploring the search space. This report briefly outlines the components, concepts, advantages and disadvantages of different metaheuristic approaches from a conceptual point of view, in order to analyze their similarities and differences. The two very significant forces of intensification and diversification, that mainly determine the behavior of a metaheuristic, will be pointed out. The report concludes by exploring the importance of hybridization and integration methods
Memory-Adjustable Navigation Piles with Applications to Sorting and Convex Hulls
We consider space-bounded computations on a random-access machine (RAM) where
the input is given on a read-only random-access medium, the output is to be
produced to a write-only sequential-access medium, and the available workspace
allows random reads and writes but is of limited capacity. The length of the
input is elements, the length of the output is limited by the computation,
and the capacity of the workspace is bits for some predetermined
parameter . We present a state-of-the-art priority queue---called an
adjustable navigation pile---for this restricted RAM model. Under some
reasonable assumptions, our priority queue supports and
in worst-case time and in worst-case time for any . We show how to use this
data structure to sort elements and to compute the convex hull of
points in the two-dimensional Euclidean space in
worst-case time for any . Following a known lower bound for the
space-time product of any branching program for finding unique elements, both
our sorting and convex-hull algorithms are optimal. The adjustable navigation
pile has turned out to be useful when designing other space-efficient
algorithms, and we expect that it will find its way to yet other applications.Comment: 21 page
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