Author
Hermann Gehring
Other affiliations: Rolf C. Hagen Group
Bio: Hermann Gehring is an academic researcher from FernUniversität Hagen. The author has contributed to research in topics: Metaheuristic & Tabu search. The author has an hindex of 19, co-authored 48 publications receiving 2060 citations. Previous affiliations of Hermann Gehring include Rolf C. Hagen Group.
Papers
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TL;DR: A hybrid genetic algorithm for the container loading problem with boxes of different sizes and a single container for loading that uses specific genetic operators based on an integrated greedy heuristic to generate offspring.
303 citations
TL;DR: Two evolution strategies for solving the vehicle routing problem with time windows are proposed and generated new best known solutions indicate that evolution strategies are effective in reducing both the number of vehicles and the total travel distance.
Abstract: The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is an extension of the well-known vehicle routing problem with a central depot. The objective is to design an optimal set of routes that servic...
292 citations
TL;DR: The paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA) for the container loading problem to generate a set of disjunctive box towers and to arrange the box towers on the floor of the container according to a given optimization criterion.
254 citations
TL;DR: The two-phase hybrid metaheuristic was subjected to a comparative test on the basis of 356 problems from the literature with sizes varying from 100 to 1000 customers and the derived results show that the proposed two- phase approach is very competitive.
241 citations
01 May 2003
TL;DR: This paper presents a parallel tabu search algorithm for the container loading problem with a single container to be loaded with the emphasis on the case of a weakly heterogeneous load.
Abstract: This paper presents a parallel tabu search algorithm for the container loading problem with a single container to be loaded. The emphasis is on the case of a weakly heterogeneous load. The distributed-parallel approach is based on the concept of multi-search threads according to Toulouse et al. [Issues in designing parallel and distributed search algorithms for discrete optimization problems, Publication CRT-96-36, Centre de recherche sur les transports, Universitede Montreal, Canada, 1996] i.e., several search paths are investigated concurrently. The parallel searches are carried out by differently configured instances of a tabu search algorithm, which cooperate by the exchange of (best) solutions at the end of defined search phases. The parallel search processes are executed on a corresponding number of LAN workstations. The efficiency of the parallel tabu search algorithm is demonstrated by an extensive comparative test including well-known reference problems and loading procedures from other authors.
192 citations
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Book•
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Researchers from other fields should find in this handbook an effective way to learn about constraint programming and to possibly use some of the constraint programming concepts and techniques in their work, thus providing a means for a fruitful cross-fertilization among different research areas.
Abstract: Constraint programming is a powerful paradigm for solving combinatorial search problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, databases, programming languages, and operations research. Constraint programming is currently applied with success to many domains, such as scheduling, planning, vehicle routing, configuration, networks, and bioinformatics.
The aim of this handbook is to capture the full breadth and depth of the constraint programming field and to be encyclopedic in its scope and coverage. While there are several excellent books on constraint programming, such books necessarily focus on the main notions and techniques and cannot cover also extensions, applications, and languages. The handbook gives a reasonably complete coverage of all these lines of work, based on constraint programming, so that a reader can have a rather precise idea of the whole field and its potential. Of course each line of work is dealt with in a survey-like style, where some details may be neglected in favor of coverage. However, the extensive bibliography of each chapter will help the interested readers to find suitable sources for the missing details. Each chapter of the handbook is intended to be a self-contained survey of a topic, and is written by one or more authors who are leading researchers in the area.
The intended audience of the handbook is researchers, graduate students, higher-year undergraduates and practitioners who wish to learn about the state-of-the-art in constraint programming. No prior knowledge about the field is necessary to be able to read the chapters and gather useful knowledge. Researchers from other fields should find in this handbook an effective way to learn about constraint programming and to possibly use some of the constraint programming concepts and techniques in their work, thus providing a means for a fruitful cross-fertilization among different research areas.
The handbook is organized in two parts. The first part covers the basic foundations of constraint programming, including the history, the notion of constraint propagation, basic search methods, global constraints, tractability and computational complexity, and important issues in modeling a problem as a constraint problem. The second part covers constraint languages and solver, several useful extensions to the basic framework (such as interval constraints, structured domains, and distributed CSPs), and successful application areas for constraint programming.
- Covers the whole field of constraint programming
- Survey-style chapters
- Five chapters on applications
Table of Contents
Foreword (Ugo Montanari)
Part I : Foundations
Chapter 1. Introduction (Francesca Rossi, Peter van Beek, Toby Walsh)
Chapter 2. Constraint Satisfaction: An Emerging Paradigm (Eugene C. Freuder, Alan K. Mackworth)
Chapter 3. Constraint Propagation (Christian Bessiere)
Chapter 4. Backtracking Search Algorithms (Peter van Beek)
Chapter 5. Local Search Methods (Holger H. Hoos, Edward Tsang)
Chapter 6. Global Constraints (Willem-Jan van Hoeve, Irit Katriel)
Chapter 7. Tractable Structures for CSPs (Rina Dechter)
Chapter 8. The Complexity of Constraint Languages
(David Cohen, Peter Jeavons)
Chapter 9. Soft Constraints (Pedro Meseguer, Francesca Rossi, Thomas Schiex)
Chapter 10. Symmetry in Constraint Programming
(Ian P. Gent, Karen E. Petrie, Jean-Francois Puget)
Chapter 11. Modelling (Barbara M. Smith)
Part II : Extensions, Languages, and Applications
Chapter 12. Constraint Logic Programming (Kim Marriott, Peter J. Stuckey, Mark Wallace)
Chapter 13. Constraints in Procedural and Concurrent Languages (Thom Fruehwirth, Laurent Michel, Christian Schulte)
Chapter 14. Finite Domain Constraint Programming Systems (Christian Schulte, Mats Carlsson)
Chapter 15. Operations Research Methods in Constraint Programming (John Hooker)
Chapter 16. Continuous and Interval Constraints(Frederic Benhamou, Laurent Granvilliers)
Chapter 17. Constraints over Structured Domains
(Carmen Gervet)
Chapter 18. Randomness and Structure (Carla Gomes, Toby Walsh)
Chapter 19. Temporal CSPs (Manolis Koubarakis)
Chapter 20. Distributed Constraint Programming
(Boi Faltings)
Chapter 21. Uncertainty and Change (Kenneth N. Brown, Ian Miguel)
Chapter 22. Constraint-Based Scheduling and Planning
(Philippe Baptiste, Philippe Laborie, Claude Le Pape, Wim Nuijten)
Chapter 23. Vehicle Routing (Philip Kilby, Paul Shaw)
Chapter 24. Configuration (Ulrich Junker)
Chapter 25. Constraint Applications in Networks
(Helmut Simonis)
Chapter 26. Bioinformatics and Constraints (Rolf Backofen, David Gilbert)
1,527 citations
TL;DR: An improved typology of C&P problems is presented, which is partially based on Dyckhoff’s original ideas, but introduces new categorisation criteria, which define problem categories different from those of Dykhoff.
1,359 citations
1,314 citations
TL;DR: A unified heuristic which is able to solve five different variants of the vehicle routing problem and shown promising results for a large class of vehicle routing problems with backhauls as demonstrated in Ropke and Pisinger.
1,282 citations
TL;DR: A unified tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and for two important generalizations: the periodic and the multi-depot vehicle routing problems with timewindows is presented.
Abstract: This paper presents a unified tabu search heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with time windows and for two important generalizations: the periodic and the multi-depot vehicle routing problems with time windows. The major benefits of the approach are its speed, simplicity and flexibility. The performance of the heuristic is assessed by comparing it to alternative methods on benchmark instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows. Computational experiments are also reported on new randomly generated instances for each of the two generalizations.
857 citations