A PROBE-Based Heuristic for Graph Partitioning

A new heuristic algorithm, PROBE_BA, which is based on the recently introduced metaheuristic paradigm population- reinforced optimization-based exploration (PROBE), is proposed for solving the Graph Partitioning Problem. The "exploration" part of PROBE_BA is implemented by using the differential-greedy algorithm of Battiti and Bertossi and a modification of the Kernighan-Lin algorithm at the heart of Bui and Moon's genetic algorithm BFS _GBA. Experiments are used to investigate properties of PROBE and show that PROBE_BA compares favorably with other solution methods based on genetic algorithms, randomized reactive tabu search, or more specialized multilevel partitioning techniques. In addition, PROBE_BA finds new best cut values for 10 of the 34 instances in Walshaw's graph partitioning archive.