Speeding Up Hyper-Heuristics With Markov-Chain Operator Selection and the Only-Worsening Acceptance Operator

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Main Authors: Bendahi, Abderrahim, Doerr, Benjamin, Fradin, Adrien, Lutzeyer, Johannes F.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Bendahi, Abderrahim
Doerr, Benjamin
Fradin, Adrien
Lutzeyer, Johannes F.
author_facet Bendahi, Abderrahim
Doerr, Benjamin
Fradin, Adrien
Lutzeyer, Johannes F.
contents The move-acceptance hyper-heuristic was recently shown to be able to leave local optima with astonishing efficiency (Lissovoi et al., Artificial Intelligence (2023)). In this work, we propose two modifications to this algorithm that demonstrate impressive performances on a large class of benchmarks including the classic Cliff$_d$ and Jump$_m$ function classes. (i) Instead of randomly choosing between the only-improving and any-move acceptance operator, we take this choice via a simple two-state Markov chain. This modification alone reduces the runtime on Jump$_m$ functions with gap parameter $m$ from $Ω(n^{2m-1})$ to $O(n^{m+1})$. (ii) We then replace the all-moves acceptance operator with the operator that only accepts worsenings. Such a, counter-intuitive, operator has not been used before in the literature. However, our proofs show that our only-worsening operator can greatly help in leaving local optima, reducing, e.g., the runtime on Jump functions to $O(n^3 \log n)$ independent of the gap size. In general, we prove a remarkably good runtime of $O(n^{k+1} \log n)$ for our Markov move-acceptance hyper-heuristic on all members of a new benchmark class SEQOPT$_k$, which contains a large number of functions having $k$ successive local optima, and which contains the commonly studied Jump$_m$ and Cliff$_d$ functions for $k=2$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_01107
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Speeding Up Hyper-Heuristics With Markov-Chain Operator Selection and the Only-Worsening Acceptance Operator
Bendahi, Abderrahim
Doerr, Benjamin
Fradin, Adrien
Lutzeyer, Johannes F.
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Data Structures and Algorithms
The move-acceptance hyper-heuristic was recently shown to be able to leave local optima with astonishing efficiency (Lissovoi et al., Artificial Intelligence (2023)). In this work, we propose two modifications to this algorithm that demonstrate impressive performances on a large class of benchmarks including the classic Cliff$_d$ and Jump$_m$ function classes. (i) Instead of randomly choosing between the only-improving and any-move acceptance operator, we take this choice via a simple two-state Markov chain. This modification alone reduces the runtime on Jump$_m$ functions with gap parameter $m$ from $Ω(n^{2m-1})$ to $O(n^{m+1})$. (ii) We then replace the all-moves acceptance operator with the operator that only accepts worsenings. Such a, counter-intuitive, operator has not been used before in the literature. However, our proofs show that our only-worsening operator can greatly help in leaving local optima, reducing, e.g., the runtime on Jump functions to $O(n^3 \log n)$ independent of the gap size. In general, we prove a remarkably good runtime of $O(n^{k+1} \log n)$ for our Markov move-acceptance hyper-heuristic on all members of a new benchmark class SEQOPT$_k$, which contains a large number of functions having $k$ successive local optima, and which contains the commonly studied Jump$_m$ and Cliff$_d$ functions for $k=2$.
title Speeding Up Hyper-Heuristics With Markov-Chain Operator Selection and the Only-Worsening Acceptance Operator
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Data Structures and Algorithms
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01107