In this paper we present and analyze the application of an Ant System to the Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and Time Windows (VRPBTW). At the core of the algorithm we use an Insertion procedure to construct solutions. We provide results on the learning and runtime behavior of the...

Ant Colony Optimization is a relatively new meta-heuristic that has proven its quality and versatility on various combinatorial optimization problems such as the traveling salesman problem, the vehicle routing problem and the job shop scheduling problem.(...)

The ant system is a new meta-heuristic for hard combinatorial optimization problems. It is a population-based approach that uses exploitation of positive feedback as well as greedy search. It was first proposed for tackling the well known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), but has been also...

This book provides successful implementations of metaheuristic methods for neural network training. It is the first book to achieve this objective. Moreover, the basic principles and fundamental ideas given in the book will allow the readers to create successful training methods on their own....

The paper shows how a particular optimization heuristic, called threshold accepting, can be successfully used to solve complex portfolio choice problems.

The algorithm for optimization of a credit portfolio has not been fully demonstrated. This paper fills the gap in the literature by presenting a general approach for optimizing a credit portfolio by minimizing the default risk of the entire portfolio. Default risk is measured with quadratic...

In the current capitalist world, several theoretical and conceptual studies have established that man is effortlessly irrational in nature at the time of making investment decisions. Behavioral finance concentrates on how psychological effects can affect market outcomes. Thus, this concept is...