The preservation of favored building blocks in the struggle for fitness: The puzzle algorithm
The shortest common superstring (SCS) problem, known to be NP-complete, seeks the shortest string that contains all strings from a given set. In this paper, we present a novel coevolutionary algorithm-the Puzzle Algorithm-where a population of building blocks coevolves alongside a population of solutions. We show experimentally that our novel algorithm outperforms a standard genetic algorithm (GA) and a benchmark greedy algorithm on instances of the SCS problem inspired by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing. We next compare our previously presented cooperative coevolutionary algorithm with the Co-Puzzle Algorithm-the puzzle algorithm coupled with cooperative coevolution-showing that the latter proves to be top gun. Finally, we discuss the benefits of using our puzzle approach in the general field of evolutionary algorithms.
building blocks coevolutionary algorithms genetic algorithms (gas) cooperative coevolution recombination loci shortest common superstring problem