This paper presents an approach for the automated cryptanalysis of substitution ciphers based on a recent evolutionary metaheuristic called Scatter Search. It is a population-based metaheuristic founded on a formulation proposed two decades ago by Fred Glover. It uses linear combinations on a population subsets to create new solutions while other evolutionary approaches like genetic algorithms ...

In the current paper a rigorous mathematical language for comparing evolutionary computation techniques via their representation is developed. A binary semi-genetic algorithm is introduced, and it is proved that in a certain sense any reasonable evolutionary search algorithm can be re-encoded by a binary semi-genetic algorithm (see corollaries 15 and 16). Moreover, an explicit bijection between...

Timetabling problems are often hard and timeconsuming to solve. Most of the methods of solving them concern only one problem instance or class. This paper describes a universal method for solving large, highly constrained timetabling problems from different domains. The solution is based on evolutionary algorithm’s framework and operates on two levels – first-level evolutionary algorithm tries ...

Understanding the behaviour of heuristic search methods is a challenge. This even holds for simple local search methods such as 2-OPT for the Traveling Salesperson problem. In this paper, we present a general framework that is able to construct a diverse set of instances that are hard or easy for a given search heuristic. Such a diverse set is obtained by using an evolutionary algorithm for con...

Search-based Software Engineering has been utilized for a number of software engineering activities. One area where Search-Based Software Engineering has seen much application is test data generation. Evolutionary testing designates the use of metaheuristic search methods for test case generation. The search space is the input domain of the test object, with each individual or potential solutio...

Harmony search algorithm (HSA) is a recent evolutionary algorithm used to solve several optimization problems. The algorithm mimics the improvisation behaviour of a group of musicians to find a good harmony. Several variations of HSA have been proposed to enhance its performance. In this paper, a new variation of HSA that uses multi-parent crossover is proposed (HSA-MPC). In this technique thre...

Computing maximum independent sets in graphs is an important problem in computer science. In this paper, we develop an evolutionary algorithm to tackle the problem. The core innovations of the algorithm are very natural combine operations based on graph partitioning and local search algorithms. More precisely, we employ a state-of-the-art graph partitioner to derive operations that enable us to...

EVITA, standing for Evolutionary Inventory and Transportation Algorithm, is a two-level methodology designed to address the Inventory and Transportation Problem (ITP) in retail chains. The top level uses an evolutionary algorithm to obtain delivery patterns for each shop on a weekly basis so as to minimise the inventory costs, while the bottom level solves the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) for ...

This paper presents a convergence theory for evolutionary pattern search algorithms (EP-SAs). EPSAs are self-adapting evolutionary algorithms that modify the step size of the mutation operator in response to the success of previous optimization steps. Previously, we have proven a stationary point convergence theory for EPSAs for which the step size is not allowed to increase. The present analys...

A Pareto Local Search (PLS) algorithm was developed and applied to the screw configuration of co-rotating twin-screw extruders. This problem can be seen as a sequencing problem where a set of different screw elements are to be sequentially positioned along the screw in order to maximize the extruder performance. The results obtained were compared with previous results obtained with a Multi-Obje...