The search space of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) can be reduced by using value interchangeability. This notion consists of aggregating subsets of values that behave similarly on the future branches of the search. BT-CPR [8], is a typical backtracking algorithm using value interchangeability. It uses the Cartesian product representation of the search space (CPR) which aggregates parti...

We describe a simple backtracking algorithm that finds approximate matches of a pattern in a large indexed text. This algorithm theoretically takes sublinear time in the length of the text. We prove a lemma that helps us to prune a significant number of branches of search in practice. We show an implementation of a variant of this algorithm and that is used to find similar regions between seque...

We investigate the problem of enumerating schedules, consisting of course-section assignments, in increasing order of the number of conflicts they contain. We define the problem formally, and then present an algorithm that systematically enumerates solutions for it. The algorithm uses backtracking to perform a depth-first search of the implicit search space defined by the problem, pruning the s...

This paper presents a new algorithm for finding all solutions with objective function values in the neighborhood of the optimum for certain dynamic programming models, including shortest path problems. The new algorithm combines the depth-first search with stacking techniques of theoretical computer science and principles from dynamic programming to modify the usual backtracking routine and lis...

Evolutionary computation tools are able to process real valued numerical sets in order to extract suboptimal solution of designed problem. Data clustering algorithms have been intensively used for image segmentation in remote sensing applications. Despite of wide usage of evolutionary algorithms on data clustering, their clustering performances have been scarcely studied by using clustering val...

Generators startup sequence plays a significant role in achieving a suitable and effective restoration strategy. This paper outlines an ant colony search algorithm in order to determine the generator starting times during the bulk power system restoration. The algorithm attempts to maximize the system generation capability over a restoration period, where the dynamic characteristics of differen...

Distributed constraint satisfaction problems (DisCSPs) are composed of agents, each holding its own variables, that are connected by constraints to variables of other agents. Due to the distributed nature of the problem, message delay can have unexpected effects on the behavior of distributed search algorithms on DisCSPs. This has been shown in experimental studies of asynchronous backtracking ...

Multi-Point Constructive Search maintains a small set of “elite solutions” that are used to heuristically guide constructive search through periodically restarting search from an elite solution. Empirical results indicate that for job shop scheduling optimization problems and quasi-group completion problems, multi-point constructive search performs significantly better than chronological backtr...

Scheduling and timetabling problems are multi-constrained constraint satisfaction problems that have huge search space. These problems are NP hard. This paper investigates the use of backtracking approaches to laboratory personnel scheduling problem in which the objective is to assign tasks to employees. The main objective of this work is to search for better solutions than those obtained by au...