Most of the heuristic search based planning systems perform guided search evaluating states to compute a heuristic measure. Although recent planners are quite efficient, the time spent in computing the heuristic measure is still an issue that the community has to address. In this work we present an extension to the heuristic of the relaxed plan introduced by the FF Planner. We propose to integr...

DEPTH (evaluation approach based on DEsign PaTterns & Heuristic criteria) is an approach for performing scenario-based heuristic usability evaluation for e-commerce sites. It is comprised of a preparatory and execution phase where specific steps are performed for evaluating the usability along three axis: usability comparison tests among similar e-commerce sites, expert / heuristic evaluation, ...

GRASP with path-relinking (GRASP+PR) is a metaheuristic for finding optimal or near-optimal solutions of combinatorial optimization problems. This paper proposes a new automatic parameter tuning procedure for GRASP+PR heuristics based on a biased random-key genetic algorithm (BRKGA). Given a GRASP+PR heuristic with n input parameters, the tuning procedure makes use of a BRKGA in a first phase t...

We propose a two-phase heuristic for crossing reduction in circular layouts. While the first algorithm uses a greedy policy to build a good initial layout, an adaptation of the sifting heuristic for crossing reduction in layered layouts is used for local optimization in the second phase. Both phases are conceptually simpler than previous heuristics, and our extensive experimental results indica...

The Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (SDVRP) is a relaxation of the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) where customers may be assigned to multiple routes. A new construction heuristic is developed for the SDVRP and computational results are given for thirty-two data sets from previous literature. With respect to the total travel distance, the construction heuristic compares favora...

With the emergence of distributed systems, the problem of task scheduling has been arousing attention in recent past. Task scheduling is a NP-complete problem and it is more complicated under the distributed heterogeneous computing environment. To harness the potential of these systems, efficient scheduling algorithms are needed. This paper proposes a new distributed scheduling algorithm for in...

This paper proposes a penalty-shift-insertion (PSI)-based algorithm for the no-wait flow shop scheduling problem to minimize total flow time. In the first phase, a penalty-based heuristic, derived from Vogel’s approximation method used for the classic transportation problem is used to generate an initial schedule. In the second phase, a known solution is improved using a forward shift heuristic...

Recent work aimed at developing a deeper understanding of suboptimal heuristic search has demonstrated that the use of a cost-based heuristic function in the presence of large operator cost ratio and the decision to allow re-opening of visited nodes can have a significant effect on search effort. In parallel research, phase transitions in problem solubility have proved useful in the study of pr...

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is one of the most important combinational optimization problems that have nowadays received much attention because of its practical applications in industrial and service problems. In this paper, a hybrid two-phase meta-heuristic algorithm called MACSGA used for solving the TSP is presented. At the first stage, the TSP is solved by the modified ant colony s...