Related papers: Drift Analysis and Evolutionary Algorithms Revisit…
The most common representation in evolutionary computation are bit strings. This is ideal to model binary decision variables, but less useful for variables taking more values. With very little theoretical work existing on how to use…
In this paper we revisit the question how hard it can be for the $(1+1)$ Evolutionary Algorithm to optimize monotone pseudo-Boolean functions. By introducing a more pessimistic stochastic process, the partially-ordered evolutionary…
The contextual bandit literature has traditionally focused on algorithms that address the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. In particular, greedy algorithms that exploit current estimates without any exploration may be sub-optimal in…
A decent number of lower bounds for non-elitist population-based evolutionary algorithms has been shown by now. Most of them are technically demanding due to the (hard to avoid) use of negative drift theorems -- general results which…
Evolutionary algorithms have been frequently used for dynamic optimization problems. With this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of this research area. We present the first computational complexity analysis of…
This paper presents an evolutionary algorithm with a new goal-sequence domination scheme for better decision support in multi-objective optimization. The approach allows the inclusion of advanced hard/soft priority and constraint…
It is generally accepted that populations are useful for the global exploration of multi-modal optimisation problems. Indeed, several theoretical results are available showing such advantages over single-trajectory search heuristics. In…
We propose a randomized greedy search algorithm to find a point estimate for a random partition based on a loss function and posterior Monte Carlo samples. Given the large size and awkward discrete nature of the search space, the…
Is it possible to maximize a monotone submodular function faster than the widely used lazy greedy algorithm (also known as accelerated greedy), both in theory and practice? In this paper, we develop the first linear-time algorithm for…
We consider the problem of minimizing a convex function that is evolving according to unknown and possibly stochastic dynamics, which may depend jointly on time and on the decision variable itself. Such problems abound in the machine…
The analysis of randomized search heuristics on classes of functions is fundamental for the understanding of the underlying stochastic process and the development of suitable proof techniques. Recently, remarkable progress has been made in…
In this paper we define a discrete dynamical system that governs the evolution of a population of agents. From the dynamical system, a variant of Differential Evolution is derived. It is then demonstrated that, under some assumptions on the…
The dynamic set cover problem has been subject to growing research attention in recent years. In this problem, we are given as input a dynamic universe of at most $n$ elements and a fixed collection of $m$ sets, where each element appears…
We present a new method for proving lower bounds on the expected running time of evolutionary algorithms. It is based on fitness-level partitions and an additional condition on transition probabilities between fitness levels. The method is…
In dictionary selection, several atoms are selected from finite candidates that successfully approximate given data points in the sparse representation. We propose a novel efficient greedy algorithm for dictionary selection. Not only does…
We consider the maximization of a submodular objective function $f:2^U\to\mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}$, where the objective $f$ is not accessed as a value oracle but instead subject to noisy queries. We introduce a versatile adaptive sampling…
We present a new adaptive algorithm for learning discrete distributions under distribution drift. In this setting, we observe a sequence of independent samples from a discrete distribution that is changing over time, and the goal is to…
Runtime analysis, as a branch of the theory of AI, studies how the number of iterations algorithms take before finding a solution (its runtime) depends on the design of the algorithm and the problem structure. Drift analysis is a…
Understanding how the time-complexity of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) depend on their parameter settings and characteristics of fitness landscapes is a fundamental problem in evolutionary computation. Most rigorous results were derived…
The theory of evolutionary computation for discrete search spaces has made significant progress in the last ten years. This survey summarizes some of the most important recent results in this research area. It discusses fine-grained models…