SATLIB is an online resource for SAT-related research established in June 1998. Its core components, a benchmark suite of SAT instances and a collection of SAT solvers, aim to facilitate empirical research on SAT by providing a uniform test-bed for SAT solvers along with freely available implementations of high-performing SAT algorithms. In this article, we give an overview of SATLIB; in particular, we describe its current set of benchmark problems. Currently, the main SATLIB web site

Local search algorithms are among the standard methods for solving hard combinatorial problems from various areas of Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. For SAT, some of the most successful and powerful algorithms are based on stochastic local search and in the past 10 years a large number of such algorithms have been proposed and investigated. In this article, we focus on two particularly well-known families of local search algorithms for SAT, the GSAT and WalkSAT architectures. We present a detailed comparative analysis of these algorithms' performance using a benchmark set which contains instances from randomised distributions as well as SAT-encoded problems from various domains. We also investigate the robustness of the observed performance characteristics as algorithm-dependent and problem-dependent parameters are changed. Our empirical analysis gives a very detailed picture of the algorithms' performance for various domains of SAT problems; it also reveals a fundamental weakness in some of the best-performing algorithms and shows how this can be overcome.

Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms have been successfully applied to hard combinatorial problems from different domains. Due to their inherent randomness, the run-time behaviour of these algorithms is characterised by a random variable. The detailed knowledge of the run-time distribution provides important information about the behaviour of SLS algorithms. In this paper we investigate the empirical run-time distributions for Walksat, one of the most powerful SLS algorithms for the Propositional Satisfiability Problem (SAT). Using statistical analysis techniques, we show that on hard Random-3-SAT problems, Walksat's run-time behaviour can be characterised by exponential distributions. This characterisation can be generalised to various SLS algorithms for SAT and to encoded problems from other domains. This result also has a number of consequences which are of theoretical as well as practical interest. One of these is the fact that these algorithms can be easily parallelised such that optimal speed-up is achieved for hard problem instances.

The hybridisation of systematic and stochastic search is an active research area with potential bene ts for real-world combinatorial problems. This paper shows that randomising the backtracking component of a systematic backtracker can improve its scalability to equal that of stochastic local search. The hybrid may be viewed as stochastic local search in a constrained space, cleanly combining local search with constraint programming techniques. The approach is applied to two very dierent problems. Firstly a hybrid of local search and constraint propagation is applied to hard random 3-SAT problems, and is the rst constructive search algorithm to solve very large instances. Secondly a hybrid of local search and branch-and-bound is applied to low-autocorrelation binary sequences (a notoriously dicult communications engineering problem), and is the rst stochastic search algorithm to nd optimal solutions. These results show that the approach is a promising one for both constraint satisfaction and optimisation problems.

Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms for propositional satisfiability testing (SAT) have become popular and powerful tools for solving suitably encoded hard combinatorial from different domains like, e.g., planning. Consequently, there is a considerable interest in finding SAT-encodings which facilitate the efficient application of SLS algorithms. In this work, we study how two encodings schemes for combinatorial problems, like the well-known Constraint Satisfaction or Hamilton Circuit Problem, affect SLS performance on the SAT-encoded instances. To explain the observed performance differences, we identify features of the induces search spaces which affect SLS performance. We furthermore present initial results of a comparitive analysis of the performance of the SAT-encoding and-solving approach versus that of native SLS algorithms directly applied to the unencoded problem instances. 1

In this paper we describe a new incomplete approach for solving constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) based on the ant colony optimization (ACO) metaheuristic. The idea is to use artificial ants to keep track of promising areas of the search space by laying trails of pheromone. This pheromone information is used to guide the search, as a heuristic for choosing values to be assigned to variables.

Abstract. Constraint satisfaction problems can be SAT-encoded in more than one way, and the choice of encoding can be as important as the choice of search algorithm. Theoretical results are few but experimental comparisons have been made between encodings, using both local and backtrack search algorithms. This paper compares local search performance on seven encodings of graph colouring benchmarks. Two of the encodings are new and one of them gives generally better results than known encodings. We also find better results than expected for two variants of the log encoding, and surprisingly poor results for the support encoding. 1

This article presents and analyzes algorithms that systematically generate random Bayesian networks of varying difficulty levels, with respect to inference using tree clustering. The results are relevant to research on efficient Bayesian network inference, such as computing a most probable explanation or belief updating, since they allow controlled experimentation to determine the impact of improvements to inference algorithms. The results are also relevant to research on machine learning of Bayesian networks, since they support controlled generation of a large number of data sets at a given difficulty level. Our generation algorithms, called BPART and MPART, support controlled but random construction of bipartite and multipartite Bayesian networks. The Bayesian network parameters that we vary are the total number of nodes, degree of connectivity, the ratio of the number of non-root nodes to the number of root nodes, regularity of the underlying graph, and characteristics of the conditional probability tables. The main dependent parameter is the size of the maximal clique as generated by tree clustering. This article presents extensive empirical analysis using the H��� � tree clustering approach as well as theoretical analysis related to the random generation of Bayesian networks using BPART and MPART. 1

Constraint satisfaction problems can be SAT-encoded in more than one way, and the choice of encoding can be as important as the choice of search algorithm. Theoretical results are few but experimental comparisons have been made between encodings, using both local and backtrack search algorithms. This paper compares local search performance on seven encodings of graph colouring benchmarks. Two of the encodings are new, and one of these gives generally better results than known encodings. We also find better results than expected for the log encoding and one of its variants.

Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms have recently been proven to be among the best approaches to solving computationally hard problems. SLS algorithms typically have a number of parameters, optimized empirically, that characterize and determine their performance. In this article, we focus on the noise parameter. The theoretical foundation of SLS, including an understanding of how to the optimal noise varies with problem di ¢ culty, is lagging compared to the strong empirical results obtained using these algorithms. A purely empirical approach to understanding and optimizing SLS noise, as problem instances vary, can be very computationally intensive. To complement existing experimental results, we formulate and analyze several Markov chain models of SLS. In particular, we compute expected hitting times and show that they are rational functions for individual problem instances as well as their mixtures. Expected hitting time curves are analytical counterparts to noise response curves reported in the experimental literature. Hitting time analysis using polynomials and convex functions is also discussed. In addition, we present examples and experimental results illustrating the impact of varying noise probability on SLS run time. In experiments, where most probable explanations in Bayesian networks are computed, we use synthetic problem instances as well as problem instances from applications. We believe that our results provide an improved theoretical understanding of the role of noise in stochastic local search, thereby providing a foundation for further progress in this area. 1