The accuracy of search heuristics: An empirical study on knapsack problems

Abstract

Theoretical models for the evaluation of quickly improving search strategies, like limited discrepancy search, are based on specific assumptions regarding the probability that a value selection heuristic makes a correct prediction. We provide an extensive empirical evaluation of value selection heuristics for knapsack problems. We investigate how the accuracy of search heuristics varies as a function of depth in the search-tree, and how the accuracies of heuristic predictions are affected by the relative strength of inference methods like pruning and constraint propagation. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.