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In this paper, from a theoretical perspective, we study how powerful graph neural networks (GNNs) can be for learning approximation algorithms for combinatorial problems. To this end, we first establish a new class of GNNs that can solve a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-11 Ryoma Sato , Makoto Yamada , Hisashi Kashima

Combinatorial optimization problems arise in a wide range of applications from diverse domains. Many of these problems are NP-hard and designing efficient heuristics for them requires considerable time and experimentation. On the other…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-01-07 Juho Lauri , Sourav Dutta , Marco Grassia , Deepak Ajwani

The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is a classic NP-hard combinatorial optimization task with numerous practical applications. Classic heuristic solvers can attain near-optimal performance for small problem instances, but become…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-13 Michael Li , Eric Bae , Christopher Haberland , Natasha Jaques

Column Generation (CG) is a popular method dedicated to enhancing computational efficiency in large scale Combinatorial Optimization (CO) problems. It reduces the number of decision variables in a problem by solving a pricing problem. For…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-18 Abdo Abouelrous , Laurens Bliek , Adriana F. Gabor , Yaoxin Wu , Yingqian Zhang

Tabular Prior-Data Fitted Network (TabPFN) is a foundation model designed for small to medium-sized tabular data, which has attracted much attention recently. This paper investigates the application of TabPFN in Combinatorial Optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Nguyen Gia Hien Vu , Yifan Tang , Rey Lim , Yifan Yang , Hang Ma , Ke Wang , G. Gary Wang

This paper proposes a framework that formulates a wide range of graph combinatorial optimization problems using permutation-based representations. These problems include the travelling salesman problem, maximum independent set, maximum cut,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-10-23 Yimeng Min

We initiate a systematic study of utilizing predictions to improve over approximation guarantees of classic algorithms, without increasing the running time. We propose a systematic method for a wide class of optimization problems that ask…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2024-11-26 Antonios Antoniadis , Marek Eliáš , Adam Polak , Moritz Venzin

Black-box problems are common in real life like structural design, drug experiments, and machine learning. When optimizing black-box systems, decision-makers always consider multiple performances and give the final decision by comprehensive…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-22 Wenjie Chen , Shengcai Liu , Ke Tang

End-to-end training of neural network solvers for graph combinatorial optimization problems such as the Travelling Salesperson Problem (TSP) have seen a surge of interest recently, but remain intractable and inefficient beyond graphs with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-05-26 Chaitanya K. Joshi , Quentin Cappart , Louis-Martin Rousseau , Thomas Laurent

Graphs have been widely used to represent complex data in many applications. Efficient and effective analysis of graphs is important for graph-based applications. However, most graph analysis tasks are combinatorial optimization (CO)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-23 Yun Peng , Byron Choi , Jianliang Xu

Solving combinatorial optimization (CO) on graphs is among the fundamental tasks for upper-stream applications in data mining, machine learning and operations research. Despite the inherent NP-hard challenge for CO, heuristics,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-07 Han Lu , Zenan Li , Runzhong Wang , Qibing Ren , Junchi Yan , Xiaokang Yang

This paper explores the possibility of near-optimally solving multi-agent, multi-task NP-hard planning problems with time-dependent rewards using a learning-based algorithm. In particular, we consider a class of robot/machine scheduling…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-15 Hyunwook Kang , Taehwan Kwon , Jinkyoo Park , James R. Morrison

Recent neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) methods have shown promising problem-solving ability without requiring domain-specific expertise. Most existing NCO methods use training and testing data with a fixed constraint value and lack…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-31 Fu Luo , Yaoxin Wu , Zhi Zheng , Zhenkun Wang

Combinatorial Optimization (CO) encompasses a wide range of problems that arise in many real-world scenarios. While significant progress has been made in developing learning-based methods for specialized CO problems, a unified model with a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Zefang Zong , Xiaochen Wei , Guozhen Zhang , Chen Gao , Huandong Wang , Yong Li

Combinatorial optimization problems, such as scheduling and route planning, are crucial in various industries but are computationally intractable due to their NP-hard nature. Neural Combinatorial Optimization methods leverage machine…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-14 Imanol Echeverria , Maialen Murua , Roberto Santana

The travelling salesman problem (TSP) of space trajectory design is complicated by its complex structure design space. The graph based tree search and stochastic seeding combinatorial approaches are commonly employed to tackle the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-09-07 Liqiang Hou , Shufan Wu , Zhongcheng Mu , Meilin Liu

Job shop scheduling problems represent a significant and complex facet of combinatorial optimization problems, which have traditionally been addressed through either exact or approximate solution methodologies. However, the practical…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-03-19 Jaejin Lee , Seho Kee , Mani Janakiram , George Runger

Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) has emerged as a powerful framework for solving combinatorial optimization problems by integrating deep learning-based models. This work focuses on improving existing inference techniques to enhance…

The Traveling Salesman Problem is a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem widely studied in operations research. Despite its simple formulation, it remains computationally challenging due to the exponential growth of the search…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-28 Alessia Ciacco , Luigi Di Puglia Pugliese , Francesca Guerriero

Neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) is a promising learning-based approach to solving various vehicle routing problems without much manual algorithm design. However, the current NCO methods mainly focus on the in-distribution…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-22 Fei Liu , Xi Lin , Weiduo Liao , Zhenkun Wang , Qingfu Zhang , Xialiang Tong , Mingxuan Yuan