Related papers: Automated Algorithm Selection on Continuous Black-…
There is a long history in machine learning of model ensembling, beginning with boosting and bagging and continuing to the present day. Much of this history has focused on combining models for classification and regression, but recently…
This work is a preliminary study on using Exploratory Landscape Analysis (ELA) for Quality Diversity (QD) problems. We seek to understand whether ELA features can potentially be used to characterise QD problems paving the way for automating…
Benchmarking is essential for developing and evaluating black-box optimization algorithms, providing a structured means to analyze their search behavior. Its effectiveness relies on carefully selected problem sets used for evaluation. To…
Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) has mostly focused on learning policies, typically neural networks, that operate on a single candidate solution at a time, either by constructing one from scratch or iteratively improving it. In…
The problem of selecting an algorithm that appears most suitable for a specific instance of an algorithmic problem class, such as the Boolean satisfiability problem, is called instance-specific algorithm selection. Over the past decade, the…
One key challenge in optimization is the selection of a suitable set of benchmark problems. A common goal is to find functions which are representative of a class of real-world optimization problems in order to ensure findings on the…
Genetic algorithms have unique properties which are useful when applied to black box optimization. Using selection, crossover, and mutation operators, candidate solutions may be obtained without the need to calculate a gradient. In this…
Accurately predicting the performance of different optimization algorithms for previously unseen problem instances is crucial for high-performing algorithm selection and configuration techniques. In the context of numerical optimization,…
A predominant topic in the theory of evolutionary algorithms and, more generally, theory of randomized black-box optimization techniques is running time analysis. Running time analysis aims at understanding the performance of a given…
Black-box optimization (BBO) has a broad range of applications, including automatic machine learning, engineering, physics, and experimental design. However, it remains a challenge for users to apply BBO methods to their problems at hand…
The Algorithm Selection Problem is concerned with selecting the best algorithm to solve a given problem on a case-by-case basis. It has become especially relevant in the last decade, as researchers are increasingly investigating how to…
Randomized search heuristics such as evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, and ant colony optimization are a broadly used class of general-purpose algorithms. Analyzing them via classical methods of theoretical computer science is a…
Evolutionary algorithms, such as Differential Evolution, excel in solving real-parameter optimization challenges. However, the effectiveness of a single algorithm varies across different problem instances, necessitating considerable efforts…
The no free lunch theorem states that no model is better suited to every problem. A question that arises from this is how to design methods that propose optimizers tailored to specific problems achieving state-of-the-art performance. This…
Bayesian optimization (BO) is an efficient framework for solving black-box optimization problems with expensive function evaluations. This paper addresses the BO problem setting for combinatorial spaces (e.g., sequences and graphs) that…
Optimization of high-dimensional black-box functions is an extremely challenging problem. While Bayesian optimization has emerged as a popular approach for optimizing black-box functions, its applicability has been limited to…
In statistics, it is common to encounter multi-modal and non-smooth likelihood (or objective function) maximization problems, where the parameters have known upper and lower bounds. This paper proposes a novel derivative-free global…
Solving multimodal optimization problems (MMOP) requires finding all optimal solutions, which is challenging in limited function evaluations. Although existing works strike the balance of exploration and exploitation through hand-crafted…
The use of blackbox solvers inside neural networks is a relatively new area which aims to improve neural network performance by including proven, efficient solvers for complex problems. Existing work has created methods for learning…
In real-world applications, users often favor structurally diverse design choices over one high-quality solution. It is hence important to consider more solutions that decision makers can compare and further explore based on additional…