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Emma Hart
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation 1–36.
Published: 05 August 2024
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Gathering sufficient instance data to either train algorithm-selection models or understand algorithm footprints within an instance space can be challenging. We propose an approach to generating synthetic instances that are tailored to perform well with respect to a target algorithm belonging to a predefined portfolio but are also diverse with respect to their features. Our approach uses a novelty search algorithm with a linearly weighted fitness function that balances novelty and performance to generate a large set of diverse and discriminatory instances in a single run of the algorithm. We consider two definitions of novelty: (1) with respect to discriminatory performance within a portfolio of solvers; (2) with respect to the features of the evolved instances. We evaluate the proposed method with respect to its ability to generate diverse and discriminatory instances in two domains (knapsack and bin-packing), comparing to another well-known quality diversity method, Multi-dimensional Archive of Phenotypic Elites (MAP-Elites) and an evolutionary algorithm that only evolves for discriminatory behaviour. The results demonstrate that the novelty search method outperforms its competitors in terms of coverage of the space and its ability to generate instances that are diverse regarding the relative size of the “performance gap” between the target solver and the remaining solvers in the portfolio. Moreover, for the Knapsack domain, we also show that we are able to generate novel instances in regions of an instance space not covered by existing benchmarks using a portfolio of state-of-the-art solvers. Finally, we demonstrate that the method is robust to different portfolios of solvers (stochastic approaches, deterministic heuristics, and state-of-the-art methods), thereby providing further evidence of its generality.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation (2023) 31 (2): 73–79.
Published: 01 June 2023
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We reflect on 30 years of the journal Evolutionary Computation . Taking the papers published in the first volume in 1993 as a springboard, as the founding and current Editors-in-Chief, we comment on the beginnings of the field, evaluate the extent to which the field has both grown and itself evolved, and provide our own perpectives on where the future lies.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation (2018) 26 (1): 67–87.
Published: 01 March 2018
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Although the use of ensemble methods in machine-learning is ubiquitous due to their proven ability to outperform their constituent algorithms, ensembles of optimisation algorithms have received relatively little attention. Existing approaches lag behind machine-learning in both theory and practice, with no principled design guidelines available. In this article, we address fundamental questions regarding ensemble composition in optimisation using the domain of bin-packing as an example. In particular, we investigate the trade-off between accuracy and diversity, and whether diversity metrics can be used as a proxy for constructing an ensemble, proposing a number of novel metrics for comparing algorithm diversity. We find that randomly composed ensembles can outperform ensembles of high-performing algorithms under certain conditions and that judicious choice of diversity metric is required to construct good ensembles. The method and findings can be generalised to any metaheuristic ensemble, and lead to better understanding of how to undertake principled ensemble design.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation (2016) 24 (4): 609–635.
Published: 01 December 2016
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We describe a new hyper-heuristic method NELLI-GP for solving job-shop scheduling problems (JSSP) that evolves an ensemble of heuristics. The ensemble adopts a divide-and-conquer approach in which each heuristic solves a unique subset of the instance set considered. NELLI-GP extends an existing ensemble method called NELLI by introducing a novel heuristic generator that evolves heuristics composed of linear sequences of dispatching rules: each rule is represented using a tree structure and is itself evolved. Following a training period, the ensemble is shown to outperform both existing dispatching rules and a standard genetic programming algorithm on a large set of new test instances. In addition, it obtains superior results on a set of 210 benchmark problems from the literature when compared to two state-of-the-art hyper-heuristic approaches. Further analysis of the relationship between heuristics in the evolved ensemble and the instances each solves provides new insights into features that might describe similar instances.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation (2015) 23 (1): 37–67.
Published: 01 March 2015
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We describe a novel hyper-heuristic system that continuously learns over time to solve a combinatorial optimisation problem. The system continuously generates new heuristics and samples problems from its environment; and representative problems and heuristics are incorporated into a self-sustaining network of interacting entities inspired by methods in artificial immune systems. The network is plastic in both its structure and content, leading to the following properties: it exploits existing knowledge captured in the network to rapidly produce solutions; it can adapt to new problems with widely differing characteristics; and it is capable of generalising over the problem space. The system is tested on a large corpus of 3,968 new instances of 1D bin-packing problems as well as on 1,370 existing problems from the literature; it shows excellent performance in terms of the quality of solutions obtained across the datasets and in adapting to dynamically changing sets of problem instances compared to previous approaches. As the network self-adapts to sustain a minimal repertoire of both problems and heuristics that form a representative map of the problem space, the system is further shown to be computationally efficient and therefore scalable.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Evolutionary Computation (1998) 6 (1): 61–80.
Published: 01 March 1998
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This work addresses the real-life scheduling problem of a Scottish company that must produce daily schedules for the catching and transportation of large numbers of live chickens. The problem is complex and highly constrained. We show that it can be successfully solved by division into two subproblems and solving each using a separate genetic algorithm (GA). We address the problem of whether this produces locally optimal solutions and how to overcome this. We extend the traditional approach of evolving a “permutation + schedule builder” by concentrating on evolving the schedule builder itself. This results in a unique schedule builder being built for each daily scheduling problem, each individually tailored to deal with the particular features of that problem. This results in a robust, fast, and flexible system that can cope with most of the circumstances imaginable at the factory. We also compare the performance of a GA approach to several other evolutionary methods and show that population-based methods are superior to both hill-climbing and simulated annealing in the quality of solutions produced. Population-based methods also have the distinct advantage of producing multiple, equally fit solutions, which is of particular importance when considering the practical aspects of the problem.