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Main Authors: Liu, Hongyu, Liu, Haoyang, Kuang, Yufei, Wang, Jie, Li, Bin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09740
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author Liu, Hongyu
Liu, Haoyang
Kuang, Yufei
Wang, Jie
Li, Bin
author_facet Liu, Hongyu
Liu, Haoyang
Kuang, Yufei
Wang, Jie
Li, Bin
contents Combinatorial optimization (CO) is one of the most fundamental mathematical models in real-world applications. Traditional CO solvers, such as Branch-and-Bound (B&B) solvers, heavily rely on expert-designed heuristics, which are reliable but require substantial manual tuning. Recent studies have leveraged deep learning (DL) models as an alternative to capture rich feature patterns for improved performance on GPU machines. Nonetheless, the drawbacks of high training and inference costs, as well as limited interpretability, severely hinder the adoption of DL methods in real-world applications. To address these challenges, we propose a novel deep symbolic optimization learning framework that combines their advantages. Specifically, we focus on the node selection module within B&B solvers -- namely, deep symbolic optimization for node selection (Dso4NS). With data-driven approaches, Dso4NS guides the search for mathematical expressions within the high-dimensional discrete symbolic space and then incorporates the highest-performing mathematical expressions into a solver. The data-driven model captures the rich feature information in the input data and generates symbolic expressions, while the expressions deployed in solvers enable fast inference with high interpretability. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of Dso4NS in learning high-quality expressions, outperforming existing approaches on a CPU machine. Encouragingly, the learned CPU-based policies consistently achieve performance comparable to state-of-the-art GPU-based approaches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_09740
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publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Symbolic Optimization for Combinatorial Optimization: Accelerating Node Selection by Discovering Potential Heuristics
Liu, Hongyu
Liu, Haoyang
Kuang, Yufei
Wang, Jie
Li, Bin
Machine Learning
Combinatorial optimization (CO) is one of the most fundamental mathematical models in real-world applications. Traditional CO solvers, such as Branch-and-Bound (B&B) solvers, heavily rely on expert-designed heuristics, which are reliable but require substantial manual tuning. Recent studies have leveraged deep learning (DL) models as an alternative to capture rich feature patterns for improved performance on GPU machines. Nonetheless, the drawbacks of high training and inference costs, as well as limited interpretability, severely hinder the adoption of DL methods in real-world applications. To address these challenges, we propose a novel deep symbolic optimization learning framework that combines their advantages. Specifically, we focus on the node selection module within B&B solvers -- namely, deep symbolic optimization for node selection (Dso4NS). With data-driven approaches, Dso4NS guides the search for mathematical expressions within the high-dimensional discrete symbolic space and then incorporates the highest-performing mathematical expressions into a solver. The data-driven model captures the rich feature information in the input data and generates symbolic expressions, while the expressions deployed in solvers enable fast inference with high interpretability. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of Dso4NS in learning high-quality expressions, outperforming existing approaches on a CPU machine. Encouragingly, the learned CPU-based policies consistently achieve performance comparable to state-of-the-art GPU-based approaches.
title Deep Symbolic Optimization for Combinatorial Optimization: Accelerating Node Selection by Discovering Potential Heuristics
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09740