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Recent Advances for the Quadratic Assignment Problem with Special Emphasis on Instances that are Difficult for Meta-Heuristic Methods

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Abstract

This paper reports heuristic and exact solution advances for the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP).QAPinstances most often discussed in the literature are relatively well solved by heuristic approaches. Indeed, solutions at a fraction of one percent from the best known solution values are rapidly found by most heuristic methods. Exact methods are not able to prove optimality for these instances as soon as the problem size approaches 30 to 40. This article presents new QAP instances that are ill conditioned for many metaheuristic-based methods. However, these new instances are shown to be solved relatively well by some exact methods, since problem instances up to a size of 75 have been exactly solved.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University-Fullerton, USA

    Zvi Drezner

  2. The University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania

    Peter M. Hahn

  3. The University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland, Switzerland

    Éeric D. Taillard

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  1. Zvi Drezner
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  2. Peter M. Hahn
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  3. Éeric D. Taillard
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Correspondence to Peter M. Hahn.

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Drezner, Z., Hahn, P.M. & Taillard, É.D. Recent Advances for the Quadratic Assignment Problem with Special Emphasis on Instances that are Difficult for Meta-Heuristic Methods. Ann Oper Res 139, 65–94 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-005-3444-z

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