最大受限路径相容约束传播算法的研究进展

约束传播技术对于约束满足问题的求解性能至关重要。约束传播技术在一个预处理过程中能彻底地移除一些局部不相容值,或者在搜索期间高效地剪枝搜索树。最大受限路径相容算法(max Restricted Path Consistency,maxRPC)是最近提出的一种强相容性约束传播算法,它能够删除更多不相容值,在解决复杂问题中取得了很好的效果。文中对弧相容算法AC和最大受限路径相容算法maxRPC的相关算法AC3,AC3rm,maxRPC1,maxRPC2,maxRPCrm,maxRPC3等及其相关变体分别进行介绍和比较。在Mistral求解器上的实验测试结果验证了各种算法的性能。     

基于序列的子问题相容性技术

研究约束求解中的相容性技术,针对目前已有相容性的传播级别,提出一种新的相容性概念——基于序列的子问题相容性(SSAC),并给出相应的实现算法。然后分析其时空、空间复杂性及正确性,证明SSAC化简不改变原约束满足问题的解集,同时证明SSAC的约束传播能力介于SAC和AC之间。通过对随机问题和composed问题的测试表明,所提算法的效率是已有算法SAC-SDS和SAC-3的2～3倍。     

一种基于预处理技术的约束满足问题求解算法

相容性技术作为约束满足问题的一种有效求解技术,不论是在求解前的预处理过程中,还是在搜索过程中,都扮演着极为重要的角色.文中对预处理阶段的相容性技术进行改进和信息抽取,提出两种应用于搜索过程中的新算法Pre-AC和Pre-AC*,并嵌入到BT框架中,形成新的搜索算法BT MPAC和BT MPAC*,给出了其正确性证明,通过复杂性分析得到Pre-AC和Pre-AC*的时间复杂度分别是O(nd)和O(ed2),明显低于目前最流行的弧相容技术的时间复杂度O(ed3).实验测试结果表明:对于不同类别的用例,新算法的执行效率是弧相容维护算法的2~50倍.     

基于启发式的约束满足问题AC系列算法改进研究

约束满足问题是人工智能领域中一个重要的研究方向,其研究结果在符号推理、系统诊断、真值维护系统、资源分配和产品配置等问题中有广泛的应用。局部相容性定义了约束满足问题在约束传播过程中必须满足的性质,是约束传播发展的主要方向。而对于较为复杂的相容性问题中的AC系列算法的改进可谓难上之难。本文围绕着以弧相容、Singleton弧相容为代表的相容性技术和求解算法展开,主要针对AC-2001算法、SAC算法等进行优化改进,重点基于启发式进行改进,使之获得了更快的筛选速度。尤其对于SAC算法,大大减少了约束检查次数,获得了较为成功的基于启发式的改进结果。     

最先失败原则的约束传播算法

约束满足问题是人工智能研究领域的重要问题.而弧相容算法是求解约束满足问题的重要工具.在弧相容算法中应用启发式规则已经证明是一种很有效的方式.本文提出一个基于最先失败原则的约束传播算法,该算法在搜索过程中更早地发现含有空域的变量并提前进行回溯,从而提高问题求解效率.同时,在"明月1.0"架构下实现了该算法,实验结果表明使用最先失败原则的弧相容算法要比原来的算法效率上提高了约40%.     

一种维持约束网络相容性的双向传播策略

约束满足问题是经典NP-hard问题,其基本算法是递归形式的回溯算法和弧一致性算法.将弧相容与回溯搜索结合,可以有效降低解空间大小.针对弧相容的维持问题,提出一种新的基于时序计数的传播方案,用于增量更新约束子网.将accumulateRevision和pushRevison作为双向修订的主要方法,以减少修订次数和域过滤变量的数量.实验结果表明,与经典的基于关系的方案和基于变量的传播方案相比,该方案的整体求解速度明显提高,且具有较少的修订时间.     

区间值模糊集相容性测度的性质、改进和传播

分析区间值模糊集相容度的一些性质.提出一个新的相容性测度公式--相合度.它去掉相容度的非对称性的缺点,又保持相容度的其它特性.研究模糊推理算法对相容度和相合度的传播问题,并发现实际应用中,当已知规则的前件和后件是正规模糊集时,Zadeh的模糊推理合成算法(CRI)不会使相合度变小.本文工作对基于区间值模糊集的规则库整理以及推理算法的选择和分析有一定益处.     

基于覆盖粗糙集模型的层次聚类算法

目前大部分聚类算法只适用于处理属性取值为单值的数值型数据,介绍了一种新的基于粗糙集理论的聚类算法,该算法不仅可用于取值为单值的数值型数据聚类,而且能够用于取值为多值的非数值型数据聚类.该算法利用基于相容关系的属性最小覆盖来求解对象各属性的对象属性信息粒.在此基础上,通过对象属性信息粒和对象粗糙相似度的运算构建各对象的相容粒.最后,把具有相同相容粒的对象视为同一等价类,从而实现对论域的聚类,进而对数据对象进行层次聚类.实验结果表明,该算法是可行的.     

Improving Coarse-Grained Arc Consistency Algorithms in Solving Constraint Satisfaction Problems

约束满足问题在人工智能领域有着广泛的应用.研究了约束满足问题的粗粒度维持弧相容求解算法,发现在求解过程中,对于指向已赋值变量的弧存在无效的修正检查,证明了这类修正检查是冗余的.提出一种方法避免这类冗余的修正检查,给出改进后的粗粒度弧相容算法的基本框架AC3_frame_ARR,该改进框架可用于改进所有粗粒度弧相容算法.实验结果表明,经过AC3 frame ARR改进后的算法最多可以节省80％的修正检查次数和40％的求解耗时.     

改进求解约束满足问题粗粒度弧相容算法

约束满足问题在人工智能领域有着广泛的应用.研究了约束满足问题的粗粒度维持弧相容求解算法,发现在求解过程中,对于指向已赋值变量的弧存在无效的修正检查,证明了这类修正检查是冗余的.提出一种方法避免这类冗余的修正检查,给出改进后的粗粒度弧相容算法的基本框架AC3_frame_ARR,该改进框架可用于改进所有粗粒度弧相容算法.实验结果表明,经过AC3_frame_ARR改进后的算法最多可以节省80%的修正检查次数和40%的求解耗时.     

一种新的基于完全独立相容性的预处理技术

研究了求解约束满足问题(Constraint satisfaction problem, CSP)中的预处理技术. 首先提出了子论域上的完全独立相容性(Entirety singleton consistency, ESC)概念和相应算法, 分析并证明了算法的复杂性和正确性, 而后对其两条重要性质进行了详细证明. 基于此概念和性质, 提出了一种基于完全独立相容性的预处理算法: SAC-ESC算法, 并给出了正确性证明. 最后, 本文采用分治思想, 根据不同问题的论域自适应地合理划分其子论域. 实验结果表明, 对于随机问题、鸽巢问题、N皇后问题和基准用例, 算法SAC-ESC的执行效率大约是目前流行算法SAC-SDS和SAC-3的3~20倍.     

An optimal coarse-grained arc consistency algorithm

The use of constraint propagation is the main feature of any constraint solver. It is thus of prime importance to manage the propagation in an efficient and effective fashion. There are two classes of propagation algorithms for general constraints: fine-grained algorithms where the removal of a value for a variable will be propagated to the corresponding values for other variables, and coarse-grained algorithms where the removal of a value will be propagated to the related variables. One big advantage of coarse-grained algorithms, like AC-3, over fine-grained algorithms, like AC-4, is the ease of integration when implementing an algorithm in a constraint solver. However, fine-grained algorithms usually have optimal worst case time complexity while coarse-grained algorithms do not. For example, AC-3 is an algorithm with non-optimal worst case complexity although it is simple, efficient in practice, and widely used. In this paper we propose a coarse-grained algorithm, AC2001/3.1, that is worst case optimal and preserves as much as possible the ease of its integration into a solver (no heavy data structure to be maintained during search). Experimental results show that AC2001/3.1 is competitive with the best fine-grained algorithms such as AC-6. The idea behind the new algorithm can immediately be applied to obtain a path consistency algorithm that has the best-known time and space complexity. The same idea is then extended to non-binary constraints.     

An Efficient Bounds Consistency Algorithm for the Global Cardinality Constraint

Previous studies have demonstrated that designing special purpose constraint propagators can significantly improve the efficiency of a constraint programming approach. In this paper we present an efficient algorithm for bounds consistency propagation of the generalized cardinality constraint (gcc). Using a variety of benchmark and random problems, we show that on some problems our bounds consistency algorithm can dramatically outperform existing state-of-the-art commercial implementations of constraint propagators for the gcc. We also present a new algorithm for domain consistency propagation of the gcc which improves on the worst-case performance of the best previous algorithm for problems that occur often in applications.     

Optimal and efficient filtering algorithms for table constraints

Filtering algorithms for table constraints can be classified in two categories: constraint-based and value-based. In the constraint-based approaches, the propagation queue only contains information on the constraints that must be reconsidered. For the value-based approaches, the propagation queue also contains information on the removed values. This paper proposes five efficient value-based algorithms for table constraints. Two of them (AC5TCOpt-Tr and AC5TCOpt-Sparse) are proved to have an optimal time complexity of O(r·t+r·d) per table constraint. Substantial experimental results are presented. An empirical analysis is conducted on the effect of the arity of the tables. The experiments show that our propagators are the best when the arity of the table is 3 or 4. Indeed, on instances containing only binary constraints, our algorithms are outperformed by classical AC algorithm AC3rm. AC3rm is dedicated to binary constraints. However, all our algorithms outperform existing state-of-the-art constraint based STR2+ and MDD ^c and the optimal value-based STR3 algorithms on those instances. On instances with small arity tables (up to arity 4), all our algorithms are generally faster than STR2+, MDD ^c and than STR3. AC5TCOpt-Sparse is globally the best propagator on those benchmarks. On benchmarks containing large arity tables (arity 5 or more), each of the three existing state-of-the-art algorithms is the winning strategy on one different benchmark.     

Constraint satisfaction algorithms1

Constraint satisfaction problems are ubiquitous in artificial intelligence and many algorithms have been developed for their solution. This paper provides a unified survey of some of these, in terms of three classes: (i) tree search, (ii) arc consistency (AC), and (iii) hybrid tree search/arc consistency algorithms. It is shown that several important algorithms, when slightly rearranged, are of the latter hybrid form, but with arc consistency components that do not necessarily achieve full arc consistency at the tree nodes. Accordingly, we define several new partial AC procedures, AC1/5, AC1/4, AC1/3, and AC½, analogous to the well-known full AC algorithms which Mackworth has called AC1, AC2, and AC3. The fractional suffixes on our AC algorithms are roughly proportional to the degree of partial arc consistency they achieve. Unlike traditional versions, our AC algorithms (full and partial) are presented in a parameterized form to allow them to be embedded efficiently at the nodes of a tree search process. Algorithm complexities are compared empirically, using the n-queens problem and a new version called confused n-queens. Gaschnig's Backmarking (a tree search algorithm) and Haralick's Forward Checking (a hybrid algorithm) are found to be the most efficient. For the hybrid algorithms, we find that it pays to do little arc consistency processing at the nodes, incurring more nodes, but sufficiently reducing the work per node so as to obtain less work over the whole tree. The unified view taken here suggests several new algorithms. Preliminary results show one of these to be the best algorithm so far.     

一种高效的FDE并行传播算法

约束规划(constraint programming, CP)是表示和求解组合问题的经典范式之一.扩展约束(extensional constraint)或称表约束(table constraint)是约束规划中最为常见的约束类型.绝大多数约束规划问题都可以用表约束表达.在问题求解时,相容性算法用于缩减搜索空间.目前,最为高效的表约束相容性算法是简单表约缩减(simple table reduction, STR)算法簇,如Compact-Table (CT)和STRbit算法.它们在搜索过程中维持广义弧相容(generalized arc consistency, GAC).此外,完全成对相容性(full pairwise consistency, fPWC)是一种比GAC剪枝能力更强的相容性.最为高效的维持fPWC算法是PW-CT算法.多年来,人们提出了多种表约束相容性算法来提高剪枝能力和执行效率.因子分解编码(factor-decomposition encoding, FDE)通过对平凡问题重新编码.它一定程度地扩大了问题模型,使在新的问题上维持相对较弱的GAC等价于在原问题...     

An effective approximation algorithm for the Malleable Parallel Task Scheduling problem

The Malleable Parallel Task Scheduling problem (MPTS) is an extension of one of the most classic scheduling problems (P∥C_max). The only difference is that for MPTS, each task can be processed simultaneously by more than one processor. Such flexibility could dramatically reduce the makespan, but greatly increase the difficulty for solving the problem. By carefully analyzing some existing algorithms for MPTS, we find each of them suitable for some specific cases, but none is effective enough for all cases. Based on such observations, we introduce some optimization algorithms and improving techniques for MPTS, with their performance analyzed in theory. Combining these optimization algorithms and improving techniques gives rise to our novel scheduling algorithm OCM (Optimizations Combined for MPTS), a 2-approximation algorithm for MPTS. Extensive simulations on random datasets and SPLASH-2 benchmark reveal that for all cases, schedules produced by OCM have smaller makespans, compared with other existing algorithms.     

具有优先关系的累积调度问题的约束传播算法

约束传播是约束规划成功应用的关键技术之一. 针对累积调度问题提出一种结合工作间优先关系和工作最早开始/最晚完成时间约束的约束传播算法, 给出了算法的理论依据. 引用资源受限项目调度问题库PSPLIB中的典型问题对算法进行了测试, 结果表明: 针对测试问题新的约束传播算法在总体约减效果上优于现有约束传播算法, 新算法与基于能量推理的约束传播算法可以互补, 两者结合推理效果更好.