Search results for "Metaheuristic"
showing 10 items of 153 documents
Some Aspects Regarding the Application of the Ant Colony Meta-heuristic to Scheduling Problems
2010
Scheduling is one of the most complex problems that appear in various fields of activity, from industry to scientific research, and have a special place among the optimization problems In our paper we present the results of our computational study i.e an Ant Colony Optimization algorithm for the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem that uses dynamic pheromone evaporation.
General Concepts in Metaheuristic Search
2017
Metaheuristics have become a very popular family of solution methods for optimization problems because they are capable of finding “acceptable” solutions in a “reasonable” amount of time. Most optimization problems in practice are too complex to be approached by exact methods that can guarantee finding global optimal solutions. The time required to find and verify globally optimal solutions is impractical in most applications. An entire computational theory, which we will not discussed here, has been developed around problem complexity. It suffices to say that it is now known that the great majority of the optimization problems found in practice fall within a category that makes them “compu…
Advanced Scatter Search for the Max-Cut Problem
2009
The max-cut problem consists of finding a partition of the nodes of a weighted graph into two subsets such that the sum of the weights on the arcs connecting the two subsets is maximized. This is an NP-hard problem that can also be formulated as an integer quadratic program. Several solution methods have been developed since the 1970s and applied to a variety of fields, particularly in engineering and layout design. We propose a heuristic method based on the scatter-search methodology for finding approximate solutions to this optimization problem. Our solution procedure incorporates some innovative features within the scatter-search framework: (1) the solution of the maximum diversity prob…
GRASP and path relinking for the max–min diversity problem
2010
The max-min diversity problem (MMDP) consists in selecting a subset of elements from a given set in such a way that the diversity among the selected elements is maximized. The problem is NP-hard and can be formulated as an integer linear program. Since the 1980s, several solution methods for this problem have been developed and applied to a variety of fields, particularly in the social and biological sciences. We propose a heuristic method-based on the GRASP and path relinking methodologies-for finding approximate solutions to this optimization problem. We explore different ways to hybridize GRASP and path relinking, including the recently proposed variant known as GRASP with evolutionary p…
Hybridizing the cross-entropy method: An application to the max-cut problem
2009
Cross-entropy has been recently proposed as a heuristic method for solving combinatorial optimization problems. We briefly review this methodology and then suggest a hybrid version with the goal of improving its performance. In the context of the well-known max-cut problem, we compare an implementation of the original cross-entropy method with our proposed version. The suggested changes are not particular to the max-cut problem and could be considered for future applications to other combinatorial optimization problems.
Adaptive and Dynamic Ant Colony Search Algorithm for Optimal Distribution Systems Reinforcement Strategy
2006
The metaheuristic technique of Ant Colony Search has been revised here in order to deal with dynamic search optimization problems having a large search space and mixed integer variables. The problem to which it has been applied is an electrical distribution systems management problem. This kind of issues is indeed getting increasingly complicated due to the introduction of new energy trading strategies, new environmental constraints and new technologies. In particular, in this paper, the problem of finding the optimal reinforcement strategy to provide reliable and economic service to customers in a given time frame is investigated. Utilities indeed need efficient software tools to take deci…
Local search based evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithm for constrained and unconstrained problems
2009
Evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms are commonly used to obtain a set of non-dominated solutions for over a decade. Recently, a lot of emphasis have been laid on hybridizing evolutionary algorithms with MCDM and mathematical programming algorithms to yield a computationally efficient and convergent procedure. In this paper, we test an augmented local search based EMO procedure rigorously on a test suite of constrained and unconstrained multi-objective optimization problems. The success of our approach on most of the test problems not only provides confidence but also stresses the importance of hybrid evolutionary algorithms in solving multi-objective optimization problems.
Applying fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization to Multi-unit Double Auctions
2010
Abstract In the context of Quadratic Programming Problems, we use a fuzzy Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to analyze a Multi-unit Double Auction (MDA) market. We give also a Linear Programming (LP) based upper bound to help the decision maker in dealing with constraints in the mathematical model. In the computational study, we evaluate our algorithm and show that it is a feasible approach for processing bids and calculating assignments.
Handling precedence constraints in scheduling problems by the sequence pair representation
2015
In this paper, we show that sequence pair (SP) representation, primarily applied to the rectangle packing problems appearing in the VLSI industry, can be a solution representation of precedence constrained scheduling. We present three interpretations of sequence pair, which differ in complexity of schedule evaluation and size of a corresponding solution space. For each interpretation we construct an incremental precedence constrained SP neighborhood evaluation algorithm, computing feasibility of each solution in the insert neighborhood in an amortized constant time per examined solution, and prove the connectivity property of the considered neighborhoods. To compare proposed interpretations…
Scatter Search and Path Relinking
2011
Scatter search (SS) and path relinking (PR) are evolutionary methods that have been successfully applied to a wide range of hard optimization problems. The fundamental concepts and principles of the methods were first proposed in the 1970s and 1980s, and were based on formulations, dating back to the 1960s, for combining decision rules and problem constraints. The methods use strategies for search diversification and intensification that have proved effective in a variety of optimization problems and that have sometimes been embedded in other evolutionary methods to yield improved performance. This paper examines the scatter search and path relinking methodologies from both conceptual and p…