Hybrid Metaheuristics

摘要

The hybridization with other techniques for optimization has been one of the most interesting trends in the last years for what concerns research on metaheuristics. In fact, in the past 10 years the focus of research on metaheuristics has notably shifted from an algorithm-oriented point of view to a problem-oriented point of view. In other words, in contrast to the aim of primarily promoting a certain metaheuristic, as, for example, in the 80 ties and the first half of the 90 ties, nowadays researchers focus much more on solving the problem under consideration as best as possible. This has inevitably led to research that aims at combining different algorithmic components in order to design algorithms that are more powerful than the ones resulting from the implementation of pure metaheuristic strategies. Interestingly, the trend of hybridization is not restricted to the combination of algorithmic components originating from different metaheuristics, but has also been extended to the inclusion of exact algorithms into metaheuristics, or vice versa. The importance of this line of research is documented by recent conferences and workshops such as CPAIOR (Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research), HM (Hybrid Metaheuristics), and Matheuristics. Moreover, the first book specifically dedicated to hybrid metaheuristics has recently been published in 2008 [1].