scholarly journals AutoFolio: An Automatically Configured Algorithm Selector

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 745-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Lindauer ◽  
Holger H. Hoos ◽  
Frank Hutter ◽  
Torsten Schaub

Algorithm selection (AS) techniques -- which involve choosing from a set of algorithms the one expected to solve a given problem instance most efficiently -- have substantially improved the state of the art in solving many prominent AI problems, such as SAT, CSP, ASP, MAXSAT and QBF. Although several AS procedures have been introduced, not too surprisingly, none of them dominates all others across all AS scenarios. Furthermore, these procedures have parameters whose optimal values vary across AS scenarios. This holds specifically for the machine learning techniques that form the core of current AS procedures, and for their hyperparameters. Therefore, to successfully apply AS to new problems, algorithms and benchmark sets, two questions need to be answered: (i) how to select an AS approach and (ii) how to set its parameters effectively. We address both of these problems simultaneously by using automated algorithm configuration. Specifically, we demonstrate that we can automatically configure claspfolio 2, which implements a large variety of different AS approaches and their respective parameters in a single, highly-parameterized algorithm framework. Our approach, dubbed AutoFolio, allows researchers and practitioners across a broad range of applications to exploit the combined power of many different AS methods. We demonstrate AutoFolio can significantly improve the performance of claspfolio 2 on 8 out of the 13 scenarios from the Algorithm Selection Library, leads to new state-of-the-art algorithm selectors for 7 of these scenarios, and matches state-of-the-art performance (statistically) on all other scenarios. Compared to the best single algorithm for each AS scenario, AutoFolio achieves average speedup factors between 1.3 and 15.4.

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Kerschke ◽  
Holger H. Hoos ◽  
Frank Neumann ◽  
Heike Trautmann

It has long been observed that for practically any computational problem that has been intensely studied, different instances are best solved using different algorithms. This is particularly pronounced for computationally hard problems, where in most cases, no single algorithm defines the state of the art; instead, there is a set of algorithms with complementary strengths. This performance complementarity can be exploited in various ways, one of which is based on the idea of selecting, from a set of given algorithms, for each problem instance to be solved the one expected to perform best. The task of automatically selecting an algorithm from a given set is known as the per-instance algorithm selection problem and has been intensely studied over the past 15 years, leading to major improvements in the state of the art in solving a growing number of discrete combinatorial problems, including propositional satisfiability and AI planning. Per-instance algorithm selection also shows much promise for boosting performance in solving continuous and mixed discrete/continuous optimisation problems. This survey provides an overview of research in automated algorithm selection, ranging from early and seminal works to recent and promising application areas. Different from earlier work, it covers applications to discrete and continuous problems, and discusses algorithm selection in context with conceptually related approaches, such as algorithm configuration, scheduling, or portfolio selection. Since informative and cheaply computable problem instance features provide the basis for effective per-instance algorithm selection systems, we also provide an overview of such features for discrete and continuous problems. Finally, we provide perspectives on future work in the area and discuss a number of open research challenges.


Author(s):  
Marius Lindauer ◽  
Frank Hutter ◽  
Holger H. Hoos ◽  
Torsten Schaub

Algorithm selection (AS) techniques -- which involve choosing from a set of algorithms the one expected to solve a given problem instance most efficiently -- have substantially improved the state of the art in solving many prominent AI problems, such as SAT, CSP, ASP, MAXSAT and QBF. Although several AS procedures have been introduced, not too surprisingly, none of them dominates all others across all AS scenarios. Furthermore, these procedures have parameters whose optimal values vary across AS scenarios. In this extended abstract of our 2015 JAIR article of the same title, we summarize AutoFolio, which uses an algorithm configuration procedure to automatically select an AS approach and optimize its parameters for a given AS scenario. AutoFolio allows researchers and practitioners across a broad range of applications to exploit the combined power of many different AS methods and to automatically construct high-performance algorithm selectors. We demonstrate that AutoFolio was able to produce new state-of-the-art algorithm selectors for 7 well-studied AS scenarios and matches state-of-the-art performance statistically on all other scenarios. Compared to the best single algorithm for each AS scenario, AutoFolio achieved average speedup factors between 1.3 and 15.4.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 841-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCO MARATEA ◽  
LUCA PULINA ◽  
FRANCESCO RICCA

AbstractAnswer-set programming (ASP) is a truly declarative programming paradigm proposed in the area of non-monotonic reasoning and logic programming, which has been recently employed in many applications. The development of efficient ASP systems is, thus, crucial. Having in mind the task of improving the solving methods for ASP, there are two usual ways to reach this goal: (i) extending state-of-the-art techniques and ASP solvers or (ii) designing a new ASP solver from scratch. An alternative to these trends is to build on top of state-of-the-art solvers, and to apply machine learning techniques for choosing automatically the “best” available solver on a per-instance basis.In this paper, we pursue this latter direction. We first define a set of cheap-to-compute syntactic features that characterize several aspects of ASP programs. Then, we apply classification methods that, given the features of the instances in atrainingset and the solvers' performance on these instances, inductively learn algorithm selection strategies to be applied to atestset. We report the results of a number of experiments considering solvers and different training and test sets of instances taken from the ones submitted to the “System Track” of the Third ASP Competition. Our analysis shows that by applying machine learning techniques to ASP solving, it is possible to obtain very robust performance: our approach can solve more instances compared with any solver that entered the Third ASP Competition.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4776
Author(s):  
Seyed Mahdi Miraftabzadeh ◽  
Michela Longo ◽  
Federica Foiadelli ◽  
Marco Pasetti ◽  
Raul Igual

The recent advances in computing technologies and the increasing availability of large amounts of data in smart grids and smart cities are generating new research opportunities in the application of Machine Learning (ML) for improving the observability and efficiency of modern power grids. However, as the number and diversity of ML techniques increase, questions arise about their performance and applicability, and on the most suitable ML method depending on the specific application. Trying to answer these questions, this manuscript presents a systematic review of the state-of-the-art studies implementing ML techniques in the context of power systems, with a specific focus on the analysis of power flows, power quality, photovoltaic systems, intelligent transportation, and load forecasting. The survey investigates, for each of the selected topics, the most recent and promising ML techniques proposed by the literature, by highlighting their main characteristics and relevant results. The review revealed that, when compared to traditional approaches, ML algorithms can handle massive quantities of data with high dimensionality, by allowing the identification of hidden characteristics of (even) complex systems. In particular, even though very different techniques can be used for each application, hybrid models generally show better performances when compared to single ML-based models.


Author(s):  
Todor D. Ganchev

In this chapter we review various computational models of locally recurrent neurons and deliberate the architecture of some archetypal locally recurrent neural networks (LRNNs) that are based on them. Generalizations of these structures are discussed as well. Furthermore, we point at a number of realworld applications of LRNNs that have been reported in past and recent publications. These applications involve classification or prediction of temporal sequences, discovering and modeling of spatial and temporal correlations, process identification and control, etc. Validation experiments reported in these developments provide evidence that locally recurrent architectures are capable of identifying and exploiting temporal and spatial correlations (i.e., the context in which events occur), which is the main reason for their advantageous performance when compared with the one of their non-recurrent counterparts or other reasonable machine learning techniques.


2019 ◽  
Vol 624 ◽  
pp. A45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Alibert

Context. Planet formation models now often consider the formation of planetary systems with more than one planet per system. This raises the question of how to represent planetary systems in a convenient way (e.g. for visualisation purpose) and how to define the similarity between two planetary systems, for example to compare models and observations. Aims. We define a new metric to infer the similarity between two planetary systems, based on the properties of planets that belong to these systems. We then compare the similarity of planetary systems with the similarity of protoplanetary discs in which they form. Methods. We first define a new metric based on mixture of Gaussians, and then use this metric to apply a dimensionality reduction technique in order to represent planetary systems (which should be represented in a high-dimensional space) in a two-dimensional space. This allows us study the structure of a population of planetary systems and its relation with the characteristics of protoplanetary discs in which planetary systems form. Results. We show that the new metric can help to find the underlying structure of populations of planetary systems. In addition, the similarity between planetary systems, as defined in this paper, is correlated with the similarity between the protoplanetary discs in which these systems form. We finally compare the distribution of inter-system distances for a set of observed exoplanets with the distributions obtained from two models: a population synthesis model and a model where planetary systems are constructed by randomly picking synthetic planets. The observed distribution is shown to be closer to the one derived from the population synthesis model than from the random systems. Conclusions. The new metric can be used in a variety of unsupervised machine learning techniques, such as dimensionality reduction and clustering, to understand the results of simulations and compare them with the properties of observed planetary systems.


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