62 research outputs found
A tabu search heuristic for the Equitable Coloring Problem
The Equitable Coloring Problem is a variant of the Graph Coloring Problem
where the sizes of two arbitrary color classes differ in at most one unit. This
additional condition, called equity constraints, arises naturally in several
applications. Due to the hardness of the problem, current exact algorithms can
not solve large-sized instances. Such instances must be addressed only via
heuristic methods. In this paper we present a tabu search heuristic for the
Equitable Coloring Problem. This algorithm is an adaptation of the dynamic
TabuCol version of Galinier and Hao. In order to satisfy equity constraints,
new local search criteria are given. Computational experiments are carried out
in order to find the best combination of parameters involved in the dynamic
tenure of the heuristic. Finally, we show the good performance of our heuristic
over known benchmark instances
Optimality Clue for Graph Coloring Problem
In this paper, we present a new approach which qualifies or not a solution
found by a heuristic as a potential optimal solution. Our approach is based on
the following observation: for a minimization problem, the number of admissible
solutions decreases with the value of the objective function. For the Graph
Coloring Problem (GCP), we confirm this observation and present a new way to
prove optimality. This proof is based on the counting of the number of
different k-colorings and the number of independent sets of a given graph G.
Exact solutions counting problems are difficult problems (\#P-complete).
However, we show that, using only randomized heuristics, it is possible to
define an estimation of the upper bound of the number of k-colorings. This
estimate has been calibrated on a large benchmark of graph instances for which
the exact number of optimal k-colorings is known. Our approach, called
optimality clue, build a sample of k-colorings of a given graph by running many
times one randomized heuristic on the same graph instance. We use the
evolutionary algorithm HEAD [Moalic et Gondran, 2018], which is one of the most
efficient heuristic for GCP. Optimality clue matches with the standard
definition of optimality on a wide number of instances of DIMACS and RBCII
benchmarks where the optimality is known. Then, we show the clue of optimality
for another set of graph instances. Optimality Metaheuristics Near-optimal
Network conduciveness with application to the graph-coloring and independent-set optimization transitions
We introduce the notion of a network's conduciveness, a probabilistically
interpretable measure of how the network's structure allows it to be conducive
to roaming agents, in certain conditions, from one portion of the network to
another. We exemplify its use through an application to the two problems in
combinatorial optimization that, given an undirected graph, ask that its
so-called chromatic and independence numbers be found. Though NP-hard, when
solved on sequences of expanding random graphs there appear marked transitions
at which optimal solutions can be obtained substantially more easily than right
before them. We demonstrate that these phenomena can be understood by resorting
to the network that represents the solution space of the problems for each
graph and examining its conduciveness between the non-optimal solutions and the
optimal ones. At the said transitions, this network becomes strikingly more
conducive in the direction of the optimal solutions than it was just before
them, while at the same time becoming less conducive in the opposite direction.
We believe that, besides becoming useful also in other areas in which network
theory has a role to play, network conduciveness may become instrumental in
helping clarify further issues related to NP-hardness that remain poorly
understood
GraphCombEx: A Software Tool for Exploration of Combinatorial Optimisation Properties of Large Graphs
We present a prototype of a software tool for exploration of multiple
combinatorial optimisation problems in large real-world and synthetic complex
networks. Our tool, called GraphCombEx (an acronym of Graph Combinatorial
Explorer), provides a unified framework for scalable computation and
presentation of high-quality suboptimal solutions and bounds for a number of
widely studied combinatorial optimisation problems. Efficient representation
and applicability to large-scale graphs and complex networks are particularly
considered in its design. The problems currently supported include maximum
clique, graph colouring, maximum independent set, minimum vertex clique
covering, minimum dominating set, as well as the longest simple cycle problem.
Suboptimal solutions and intervals for optimal objective values are estimated
using scalable heuristics. The tool is designed with extensibility in mind,
with the view of further problems and both new fast and high-performance
heuristics to be added in the future. GraphCombEx has already been successfully
used as a support tool in a number of recent research studies using
combinatorial optimisation to analyse complex networks, indicating its promise
as a research software tool
An Analysis of Solution Properties of the Graph Coloring Problem
This paper concerns the analysis of solution properties of the Graph Coloring Problem. For this purpose, we introduce a property based on the notion of representative sets which are sets of vertices that are always colored the same in a set of solutions. Experimental results on well-studied DIMACS graphs show that many of them contain such sets and give interesting information about the diversity of the solutions. We also show how such an analysis may be used to improve a tabu search algorithm
Scatter Search for Graph Coloring
In this paper, we present a first scatter search approach for the Graph Coloring Problem (GCP). The evolutionary strategy scatter search operates on a set of configurations by combining two or more elements. New configurations are improved before replacing others according to their quality (fitness), and sometimes, to their diversity. Scatter search has been applied recently to some combinatorial optimization problems with promising results. Nevertheless, it seems that no attempt of scatter search has been published for the GCP. This paper presents such an investigation and reports experimental results on some wellstudied DIMACS graphs
An Evolutionary Annealing Approach to Graph Coloring
This paper presents a new heuristic algorithm for the graph coloring problem based on a combination of genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. Our algorithm exploits a novel crossover operator for graph coloring. Moreover, we investigate various ways in which simulated annealing can be used to enhance the performance of an evolutionary algorithm
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