Description
Scitus Computational Intelligence And Modern Heuristics by Brygida Cullen
A heuristic technique, often called simply a heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but su?cient for the immediate goals. Where ?nding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of ?nding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. In computer science, arti?cial intelligence, and mathematical optimization, a heuristic is a technique designed for solving a problem more quickly when classic methods are too slow, or for ?nding an approximate solution when classic methods fail to ?nd any exact solution. This is achieved by trading optimality, completeness, accuracy, or precision for speed. In a way, it can be considered a shortcut. A heuristic function, also called simply a heuristic, is a function that ranks alternatives in search algorithms at each branching step based on available information to decide which branch to follow. The objective of a heuristic is to produce a solution in a reasonable time frame that is good enough for solving the problem at hand. This solution may not be the best of all the actual solutions to this problem, or it may simply approximate the exact solution. But it is still valuable because ?nding it does not require a prohibitively long time. Heuristics may produce results by themselves, or they may be used in conjunction with optimization algorithms to improve their e?ciency. Results about NP-hardness in theoretical computer science make heuristics the only viable option for a variety of complex optimization problems that need to be routinely solved in real-world applications. This book entitled Computational Intelligence and Modern Heuristics highlights on computational models using heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches.