Optimization Techniques

Genetic Algorithms
And other approaches for similar applications

Optimization Techniques
Mathematical Programming Network Analysis Branch & Bound Genetic Algorithm Simulated Annealing Tabu Search

Genetic Algorithm
Based on Darwinian Paradigm

Reproduction

Competition

Survive

Selection

Intrinsically a robust search and optimization mechanism

Conceptual Algorithm

Genetic Algorithm Introduction 1

Inspired by natural evolution Population of individuals

Individual is feasible solution to problem Higher fitness is better solution

Each individual is characterized by a Fitness function

Based on their fitness, parents are selected to reproduce offspring for a new generation

Fitter individuals have more chance to reproduce New generation has same size as old generation; old generation dies

Offspring has combination of properties of two parents If well designed, population will converge to optimal solution

BEGIN Generate initial population; Compute fitness of each individual; REPEAT /* New generation /* FOR population_size / 2 DO Select two parents from old generation; /* biased to the fitter ones */ Recombine parents for two offspring; Compute fitness of offspring; Insert offspring in new generation END FOR UNTIL population has converged END

Algorithm

Example of convergence

Introduction 2
Reproduction mechanisms have no knowledge of the problem to be solved Link between genetic algorithm and problem:

Coding Fitness function

Basic principles 1
Coding or Representation

String with all parameters Parent selection Crossover Mutation When to stop

Fitness function

Reproduction

Convergence

Basic principles 2
An individual is characterized by a set of parameters: Genes The genes are joined into a string: Chromosome The chromosome forms the genotype The genotype contains all information to construct an organism: the phenotype Reproduction is a dumb process on the chromosome of the genotype Fitness is measured in the real world (struggle for life) of the phenotype

Coding
Parameters of the solution (genes) are concatenated to form a string (chromosome) All kind of alphabets can be used for a chromosome (numbers, characters), but generally a binary alphabet is used Order of genes on chromosome can be important Generally many different codings for the parameters of a solution are possible Good coding is probably the most important factor for the performance of a GA In many cases many possible chromosomes do not code for feasible solutions

Genetic Algorithm
Encoding Fitness Evaluation Reproduction Survivor Selection

Encoding
Design alternative individual (chromosome) Single design choice gene Design objectives fitness

Example
Problem

Schedule n jobs on m processors such that the maximum span is minimized.

Design alternative: job i ( i=1,2,n) is assigned to processor j (j=1,2,,m)

Individual: A n-vector x such that xi = 1, ,or m Design objective: minimize the maximal span Fitness: the maximal span for each processor

Reproduction
Reproduction operators
Crossover Mutation

Reproduction
Crossover

Two parents produce two offspring There is a chance that the chromosomes of the two parents are copied unmodified as offspring There is a chance that the chromosomes of the two parents are randomly recombined (crossover) to form offspring Generally the chance of crossover is between 0.6 and 1.0 There is a chance that a gene of a child is changed randomly Generally the chance of mutation is low (e.g. 0.001)

Mutation

Reproduction Operators
Crossover

Generating offspring from two selected parents

Single point crossover Two point crossover (Multi point crossover) Uniform crossover

One-point crossover 1
Randomly one position in the chromosomes is chosen Child 1 is head of chromosome of parent 1 with tail of chromosome of parent 2 Child 2 is head of 2 with tail of 1
Randomly chosen position

Parents:

1010001110

0011010010

Offspring: 0101010010

0011001110

Reproduction Operators comparison

Single point crossover

Two point crossover (Multi point crossover)

Cross point

One-point crossover - Nature

1 2 1 2

Two-point crossover
Randomly two positions in the chromosomes are chosen Avoids that genes at the head and genes at the tail of a chromosome are always split when recombined
Randomly chosen positions

Parents:

1010001110

0011010010

Offspring: 0101010010

0011001110

Uniform crossover
A random mask is generated The mask determines which bits are copied from one parent and which from the other parent Bit density in mask determines how much material is taken from the other parent (takeover parameter) Mask: 0110011000 (Randomly generated) Parents: 1010001110 0011010010

Offspring: 0011001010

1010010110

Reproduction Operators
Uniform crossover

Is uniform crossover better than single crossover point?

Trade off between
Exploration: introduction of new combination of features Exploitation: keep the good features in the existing solution

Problems with crossover

Depending on coding, simple crossovers can have high chance to produce illegal offspring

E.g. in TSP with simple binary or path coding, most offspring will be illegal because not all cities will be in the offspring and some cities will be there more than once

Uniform crossover can often be modified to avoid this problem

E.g. in TSP with simple path coding:

Where mask is 1, copy cities from one parent Where mask is 0, choose the remaining cities in the order of the other parent

Reproduction Operators
Mutation

Generating new offspring from single parent

Maintaining the diversity of the individuals

Crossover can only explore the combinations of the current gene pool Mutation can generate new genes

Reproduction Operators
Control parameters: population
probability

size, crossover/mutation

Problem specific Increase population size

Increase diversity and computation time for each generation

Increase crossover probability

Increase the opportunity for recombination but also disruption of good combination

Increase mutation probability

Closer to randomly search Help to introduce new gene or reintroduce the lost gene

Varies the population

Usually using crossover operators to recombine the genes to generate the new population, then using mutation operators on the new population

Parent/Survivor Selection
Strategies

Survivor selection
Always keep the best one Elitist: deletion of the K worst Probability selection : inverse to their fitness Etc.

Parent/Survivor Selection
Too strong fitness selection bias can lead to suboptimal solution Too little fitness bias selection results in unfocused and meandering search

Parent selection
Chance to be selected as parent proportional to fitness Roulette wheel To avoid problems with fitness function Tournament Not a very important parameter

Parent/Survivor Selection
Strategies

Parent selection
Uniform randomly selection Probability selection : proportional to their fitness Tournament selection (Multiple Objectives)

Build a small comparison set Randomly select a pair with the higher rank one beats the lower one Non-dominated one beat the dominated one Niche count: the number of points in the population within

Others
Global Optimal Parameter Tuning Parallelism Random number generators

Example of coding for TSP

Travelling Salesman Problem Binary

Cities are binary coded; chromosome is string of bits

Most chromosomes code for illegal tour Several chromosomes code for the same tour

Path

Cities are numbered; chromosome is string of integers

Most chromosomes code for illegal tour Several chromosomes code for the same tour

Ordinal

Cities are numbered, but code is complex All possible chromosomes are legal and only one chromosome for each tour

Several others

Roulette wheel
Sum the fitness of all chromosomes, call it T Generate a random number N between 1 and T Return chromosome whose fitness added to the running total is equal to or larger than N Chance to be selected is exactly proportional to fitness Chromosome: 1 Fitness: 8 Running total: 8 N (1 N 49): Selected: 2 2 10 3 17 27 3 4 7 34 23 5 4 38 6 11 49

Tournament
Binary tournament

Two individuals are randomly chosen; the fitter of the two is selected as a parent Two individuals are randomly chosen; with a chance p, 0.5<p<1, the fitter of the two is selected as a parent

Probabilistic binary tournament

Larger tournaments

n individuals are randomly chosen; the fittest one is selected as a parent

By changing n and/or p, the GA can be adjusted dynamically

Problems with fitness range

Premature convergence

Fitness too large Relatively superfit individuals dominate population Population converges to a local maximum Too much exploitation; too few exploration Fitness too small No selection pressure After many generations, average fitness has converged, but no global maximum is found; not sufficient difference between best and average fitness Too few exploitation; too much exploration

Slow finishing

Solutions for these problems

Use tournament selection

Implicit fitness remapping Explicit fitness remapping

Fitness scaling Fitness windowing Fitness ranking

Adjust fitness function for roulette wheel

Will be explained below

Fitness Function
Purpose Parent selection Measure for convergence For Steady state: Selection of individuals to die Should reflect the value of the chromosome in some real way Next to coding the most critical part of a GA

Fitness scaling
Fitness values are scaled by subtraction and division so that worst value is close to 0 and the best value is close to a certain value, typically 2

Chance for the most fit individual is 2 times the average Chance for the least fit individual is close to 0

Problems when the original maximum is very extreme (superfit) or when the original minimum is very extreme (superunfit)

Can be solved by defining a minimum and/or a maximum value for the fitness

Example of Fitness Scaling

Fitness windowing
Same as window scaling, except the amount subtracted is the minimum observed in the n previous generations, with n e.g. 10 Same problems as with scaling

Fitness ranking
Individuals are numbered in order of increasing fitness The rank in this order is the adjusted fitness Starting number and increment can be chosen in several ways and influence the results

No problems with super-fit or super-unfit Often superior to scaling and windowing

Fitness Evaluation
A key component in GA Time/quality trade off Multi-criterion fitness

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Dominance and indifference

For an optimization problem with more than one objective function (fi, i=1,2,n) given any two solution X 1 and X 2 , then
X1 dominates X2 ( X1

X ), if
2

fi(X 1) >= fi(X 2), for all i = 1,,n

X is indifferent with X ( X 1 2 1

X2), if X1 does not dominate X2,

and X2 does not dominate X1

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Pareto Optimal Set

If there exists no solution in the search space which dominates any member in the set P , then the solutions belonging the the set P constitute a global Pareto-optimal set. Pareto optimal front

Dominance Check

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Weighted sum

F(x) = w1f1(x1) + w2f2(x2) ++wnfn(xn) Problems?

Convex and convex Pareto optimal front Sensitive to the shape of the Pareto-optimal front Selection of weights? Need some pre-knowledge Not reliable for problem involving uncertainties

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Optimizing single objective

Maximize: fk(X )
Subject to: fj(X ) <= Ki, i <> k
X in F where F is the solution space.

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Weighted sum

F(x) = w1f1(x1) + w2f2(x2) ++wnfn(xn) Problems?

Convex and convex Pareto optimal front Sensitive to the shape of the Pareto-optimal front Selection of weights? Need some pre-knowledge Not reliable for problem involving uncertainties

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Preference based weighted sum (ISMAUT Imprecisely Specific Multiple Attribute Utility Theory )

F(x) = w1f1(x1) + w2f2(x2) ++wnfn(xn) Preference

Given two know individuals X and Y, if we prefer X than Y, then F(X) > F(Y), that is w1(f1(x1)-f1(y1)) ++wn(fn(xn)-fn(yn)) > 0

Multi-Criterion Fitness
All the preferences constitute a linear space W n ={w 1 ,w 2 ,,w n }

w1(f1(x1)-f1(y1)) ++wn(fn(xn)-fn(yn)) > 0 w1(f1(z1)-f1(p1)) ++wn(fn(zn)-fn(pn)) > 0, etc

For any two new individuals Y and Y, how to determine which one is more preferable?

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Min : = wk [ f k (Y' )) f k (Y' ' )]
k

s.t. :

Wn

Min : ' = wk [ f k (Y' ' )) f k (Y' )]

k

s.t. :

Wn

Multi-Criterion Fitness
Then,
> 0 Y' Y' ' ' > 0 Y' ' Y'
Otherwise, Y ~ Y

Construct the dominant relationship among some indifferent ones according to the preferences.

Other parameters of GA 1
Initialization:

Population size Random Dedicated greedy algorithm Generational: as described before (insects) Generational with elitism: fixed number of most fit individuals are copied unmodified into new generation Steady state: two parents are selected to reproduce and two parents are selected to die; two offspring are immediately inserted in the pool (mammals)

Reproduction:

Other parameters of GA 2
Stop criterion:

Number of new chromosomes Number of new and unique chromosomes Number of generations Best of population Average of population Accept all duplicates Avoid too many duplicates, because that degenerates the population (inteelt) No duplicates at all

Measure:

Duplicates

Example run
Maxima and Averages of steady state and generational replacement
45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 5 10 15 20 St_max St_av. Ge_ max Ge_ av.

Simulated Annealing
What

Exploits an analogy between the annealing process and the search for the optimum in a more general system.

Annealing Process
Annealing Process

Raising the temperature up to a very high level (melting temperature, for example), the atoms have a higher energy state and a high possibility to re-arrange the crystalline structure. Cooling down slowly, the atoms have a lower and lower energy state and a smaller and smaller possibility to re-arrange the crystalline structure.

Simulated Annealing
Analogy

Metal Problem Energy State Cost Function Temperature Control Parameter A completely ordered crystalline structure the optimal solution for the problem

Global optimal solution can be achieved as long as the cooling process is slow enough.

Metropolis Loop
The essential characteristic of simulated annealing Determining how to randomly explore new solution, reject or accept the new solution at a constant temperature T. Finished until equilibrium is achieved.

Metropolis Criterion
Let

X be the current solution and X be the new solution

C (x) (C (x))be the energy state (cost) of x (x)

Probability P accept = exp [(C (x)-C (x))/ T] Let N=Random (0,1) Unconditional accepted if

C( x ) < C( x ), the new solution is better C( x ) >= C( x ), the new solution is worse . Accepted only when N < Paccept

Probably accepted if

Algorithm
Initialize initial solution x , highest temperature T h , and coolest temperature T l T= T h When the temperature is higher than T l While not in equilibrium Search for the new solution X Accept or reject X according to Metropolis Criterion End Decrease the temperature T End

Simulated Annealing
Definition of solution Search mechanism, i.e. the definition of a neighborhood Cost-function

Control Parameters
Definition of equilibrium

Cannot yield any significant improvement after certain number of loops A constant number of loops

Annealing schedule (i.e. How to reduce the temperature)

A constant value, T = T - Td A constant scale factor, T= T * Rd

A scale factor usually can achieve better performance

Control Parameters
Temperature determination

Artificial, without physical significant Initial temperature

80-90% acceptance rate

Final temperature
A constant value, i.e., based on the total number of solutions searched No improvement during the entire Metropolis loop Acceptance rate falling below a given (small) value

Problem specific and may need to be tuned

Example
Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)

Given 6 cities and the traveling cost between any two cities A salesman need to start from city 1 and travel all other cities then back to city 1 Minimize the total traveling cost

Example
Solution representation

An integer list, i.e., (1,4,2,3,6,5) Swap any two integers (except for the first one)
(1,4,2,3,6,5) (1,4,3,2,6,5)

Search mechanism

Cost function

Example
Temperature

Initial temperature determination

Around 80% acceptation rate for bad move Determine acceptable (Cnew Cold)

Final temperature determination

Stop criteria Solution space coverage rate

Annealing schedule
Constant number (90% for example) Depending on solution space coverage rate

Others
Global optimal is possible, but near optimal is practical Parameter Tuning
Aarts, E. and Korst, J. (1989). Simulated Annealing and Boltzmann Machines. John Wiley & Sons.

Not easy for parallel implementation Randomly generator

Optimization Techniques
Mathematical Programming Network Analysis Branch & Bound Genetic Algorithm Simulated Annealing Tabu Search

Tabu Search
What

Neighborhood search + memory

Neighborhood search Memory Record the search history Forbid cycling search

Algorithm
Choose an initial solution X Find a subset of N(x) the neighbor of X which are not in the tabu list. Find the best one (x) in N(x). If F(x) > F(x) then set x=x. Modify the tabu list. If a stopping condition is met then stop, else go to the second step.

Effective Tabu Search

Effective Modeling

Neighborhood structure Objective function (fitness or cost)

Example Graph coloring problem: Find the minimum number of colors needed such that no two connected nodes share the same color.

Aspiration criteria

The criteria for overruling the tabu constraints and differentiating the preference of among the neighbors

Effective Tabu Search

Effective Computing

Move may be easier to be stored and computed than a completed solution

move: the process of constructing of x from x

Computing and storing the fitness difference may be easier than that of the fitness function.

Effective Tabu Search

Effective Memory Use

Variable tabu list size

For a constant size tabu list Too long: deteriorate the search results Too short: cannot effectively prevent from cycling

Intensification of the search

Decrease the tabu list size

Diversification of the search

Increase the tabu list size Penalize the frequent move or unsatisfied constraints

Example
A hybrid approach for graph coloring problem

R. Dorne and J.K. Hao, A New Genetic Local Search Algorithm for Graph Coloring, 1998

Problem
Given an undirected graph G=(V,E)

V={v 1 ,v 2 ,,v n } E={e ij }

Determine a partition of V in a minimum number of color classes C1,C2,,Ck such that for each edge eij, vi and vj are not in the same color class. NP-hard

General Approach
Transform an optimization problem into a decision problem Genetic Algorithm + Tabu Search

Meaningful crossover Using Tabu search for efficient local search

Encoding
Individual

(Ci1, Ci2, , Cik) Number of total conflicting nodes

Conflicting node having same color with at least one of its adjacent nodes

Cost function

Neighborhood (move) definition

Changing the color of a conflicting node Special data structures and techniques to improve the efficiency

Cost evaluation

Implementation
Parent Selection

Random

Reproduction/Survivor Crossover Operator

Unify independent set (UIS) crossover

Independent set Conflict-free nodes set with the same color Try to increase the size of the independent set to improve the performance of the solutions

UIS
Unify independent set

Implementation
Mutation

With Probability Pw, randomly pick neighbor With Probability 1 Pw, Tabu search
Tabu search Tabu list List of {Vi, cj} Tabu tenure (the length of the tabu list) L = a * Nc + Random(g) Nc: Number of conflicted nodes a,g: empirical parameters

Summary
Neighbor Search TS prevent being trapped in the local minimum with tabu list TS directs the selection of neighbor TS cannot guarantee the optimal result Sequential Adaptive

Hill climbing

Jaap Hofstede, Beasly, Bull, Martin Version 2, October 2000

sources

Department of Computer Science & Engineering University of South Carolina Spring, 2002