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A new hyper-heuristic as a general problem solver: an implementation in HyFlex

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Abstract

This study provides a new hyper-heuristic design using a learning-based heuristic selection mechanism together with an adaptive move acceptance criterion. The selection process was supported by an online heuristic subset selection strategy. In addition, a pairwise heuristic hybridization method was designed. The motivation behind building an intelligent selection hyper-heuristic using these adaptive hyper-heuristic sub-mechanisms is to facilitate generality. Therefore, the designed hyper-heuristic was tested on a number of problem domains defined in a high-level framework, i.e., HyFlex. The framework provides a set of problems with a number of instances as well as a group of low-level heuristics. Thus, it can be considered a good environment to measure the generality level of selection hyper-heuristics. The computational results demonstrated the generic performance of the proposed strategy in comparison with other tested hyper-heuristics composed of the sub-mechanisms from the literature. Moreover, the performance and behavior analysis conducted for the hyper-heuristic clearly showed its adaptive characteristics under different search conditions. The principles comprising the here presented algorithm were at the heart of the algorithm that won the first international cross-domain heuristic search competition.

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  1. http://www.asap.cs.nott.ac.uk/external/chesc2011/

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. KAHO Sint-Lieven, CODeS, Gebroeders De Smetstraat 1, 9000 , Gent, Belgium

    Mustafa Mısır, Katja Verbeeck & Greet Vanden Berghe

  2. KU Leuven Campus Kortrijk, CODeS, Etienne Sabbelaan 53, 8500 , Kortrijk, Belgium

    Mustafa Mısır, Katja Verbeeck, Patrick De Causmaecker & Greet Vanden Berghe

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  1. Mustafa Mısır
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  2. Katja Verbeeck
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  3. Patrick De Causmaecker
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  4. Greet Vanden Berghe
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Correspondence to Mustafa Mısır.

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Mısır, M., Verbeeck, K., Causmaecker, P.D. et al. A new hyper-heuristic as a general problem solver: an implementation in HyFlex. J Sched 16, 291–311 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10951-012-0295-8

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