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A SIMD approach to parallel heuristic search

Classics

Serial search algorithms often exhibit exponential run times and may require an exponential amount of storage as well. Thus, the design of parallel search algorithms with limited memory is of obvious interest. This paper presents an efficient SIMD parallel algorithm, called IDPS (for iterative-deepening parallel search). At a broad level IDPS is a parallel version of IDAโˆ—. While generically we have called our algorithm an IDPS, performance of four variants of it has been studied through experiments conducted on the well-known test-bed problem for search algorithms, namely the Fifteen Puzzle.


Time-saving tips for problem solving with incomplete information

Classics

Problem solving with incomplete information is usually very costly, since multiple alternatives must be taken into account in the planning pro cess. In this paper, we present some pruning rules that lead to substantial cost savings. The rules are all based on the simple idea that, if goal achievement is the sole criterion for performance, a planner need not consider one "branch" in its search space when there is another "branch" characterized by equal or greater information. The idea is worked out for the cases of sequential planning, conditional planning, and interleaved planning and execution. The rules are of special value in this last case, as they provide a way for the problem solver to terminate its search without planning all the way to the goal and yet be assured that no important alternatives are overlooked.


Machine discovery of effective admissible heuristics

Classics

Admissible heuristics are an important class of heuristics worth discovering: they guarantee shortest path solutions in search algorithms such asA* and they guarantee less expensively produced, but boundedly longer solutions in search algorithms such as dynamic weighting. Unfortunately, effective (accurate and cheap to compute) admissible heuristics can take years for people to discover. Several researchers have suggested that certain transformations of a problem can be used to generate admissible heuristics. This article defines a more general class of transformations, calledabstractions, that are guaranteed to generate only admissible heuristics. It also describes and evaluates an implemented program (Absolver II) that uses a means-ends analysis search control strategy to discover abstracted problems that result in effective admissible heuristics.


On the greedy algorithm for satisfiability

Classics

We show that for the vast majority of satisfiable 3CNF formulae, the local search heuristic that starts at a random truth assignment and repeatedly flips the variable that improves the number of satisfied clauses the most, almost always succeeds in discovering a satisfying truth assignment.


Hard and Easy SAT Problems

Classics

"We report results from large-scale experiments in satisfiability testing. As has been observed by others, testing the satisfiability of random formulas often appears surprisingly easy. Here we show that by using the right distribution of instances, and appropriate parameter values, it is possible to generate random formulas that are hard, that is, for which satisfiability testing is quite difficult. Our results provide a benchmark for the evaluation of satisfiability-testing procedures." Proc. AAAI-92.


A New Method for Solving Hard Satisfiability Problems

Classics

"We introduce a greedy local search procedure called GSAT for solving propositional satisfiability problems. Our experiments show that this procedure can be used to solve hard, randomly generated problems that are an order of magnitude larger than those that can be handled by more traditional approaches such as the Davis-Putnam procedure or resolution. We also show that GSAT can solve structured satisfiability problems quickly. In particular, we solve encodings of graph coloring problems, N-queens, and Boolean induction. General application strategies and limitations of the approach are also discussed. GSAT is best viewed as a model-finding procedure. Its good performance suggests that it may be advantageous to reformulate reasoning tasks that have traditionally been viewed as theorem-proving problems as model-finding tasks." Proc. AAAI-92.


Using Genetic Algorithms to Improve Pattern Classification Performance

Neural Information Processing Systems

Feature selection and creation are two of the most important and difficult tasks in the field of pattern classification. Good features improve the performance of both conventional and neural network pattern classifiers. Exemplar selection is another task that can reduce the memory and computation requirements of a KNN classifier.


Using Genetic Algorithms to Improve Pattern Classification Performance

Neural Information Processing Systems

Feature selection and creation are two of the most important and difficult tasks in the field of pattern classification. Good features improve the performance of both conventional and neural network pattern classifiers. Exemplar selection is another task that can reduce the memory and computation requirements of a KNN classifier.


Using Genetic Algorithms to Improve Pattern Classification Performance

Neural Information Processing Systems

Feature selection and creation are two of the most important and difficult tasks in the field of pattern classification. Good features improve the performance of both conventional and neural network pattern classifiers. Exemplar selection is another task that can reduce the memory and computation requirements of a KNN classifier. These three tasks require a search through a space which is typically so large that 797 798 Chang and Lippmann exhaustive search is impractical. The purpose of this research was to explore the usefulness of Genetic search algorithms for these tasks. Details concerning this research are available in (Chang, 1990).


Classifying and Detecting Plan-Based Misconceptions for Robust Plan Recognition

AI Magazine

My Ph.D. dissertation (Calistri 1990) extends traditional methods of plan recognition to handle situations in which agents have flawed plans. This extension involves solving two problems: determining what sorts of mistakes people make when they reason about plans and figuring out how to recognize these mistakes when they occur. I have developed a complete classification of plan-based misconceptions, which categorizes all ways that a plan can fail, and I have developed a probabilistic interpretation of these misconceptions that can be used in principle to guide a best-first search algorithm. I have also developed a program called Pathfinder that embodies a practical implementation of this theory.