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Recent

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Talks, presentations, and posters

Poster at 2011 DOE Applied Mathematics Program Meeting, October 17-19, 2011, Washington, DC. Title: Model-Based Optimization Algorithms for Empirical Performance Tuning.

Talk at SIAM Conference on Parallel Processing (SIAM PP 2012), February 15– February 17, 2012, Savannah, Georgia. Title: Efficient Optimization Algorithms for Empirical Performance Tuning.

Talk at Workshop on Tools for Program Development and Analysis in Computational Science, International Conference on Computational Science (ICCS 2012), June 4–6, 2012, Omaha, Nebraska. Title: SPAPT: Search Problems in Automatic Performance Tuning.

Talk at DOE CScADS Workshop on Libraries and Autotuning for Extreme-Scale Systems, at from Aug 13-14, 2012 Snowbird, Utah. Title: Global and local search algorithms in empirical performance tuning.

Talk at SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (SIAM CSE 2011), February 28–March 4, 2011, Reno, NV. Title: Comparison of search strategies in empirical performance tuning of linear algebra kernels.

Talk at the International Conference on Computational Science (ICCS 2011), June 1–3, 2011, Singapore. Title: Can search algorithms save large-scale auto- matic performance tuning?

Talk at CACHE institute project meeting. August 1–2, 2011, Berkeley, CA. Title: Optimization-based search for autotuning.

Softwares

SPAPT is a set of extensible and portable search problems in automatic performance tuning whose goal is to aid in the development and improvement of search strategies and performance-improving transformations. SPAPT contains representative implementations from a number of lower-level, serial performance tuning tasks in scientific applications. Available with Orio autotuning framework. (With Stefan Wild and Boyana Norris)

The irace Package: Iterated Race for Automatic Algorithm Configuration The irace package implements the iterated racing procedure, which is an extension of the Iterated F-race procedure. Its main purpose is to automatically configure optimization algorithms by finding the most appropriate settings given a set of instances of an optimization problem. It builds upon the race package by Birattari and it is implemented in R. (Maintainers: Manuel López-Ibáñez and Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste. Contributors: Thomas Stützle, Mauro Birattari, Eric Yuan and Prasanna Balaprakash.)

ELS-PTSP: This software package provides a high performing implementation of the estimation-based iterative improvement algorithm to tackle the probabilistic traveling salesman problem. A key nov- elty of the proposed algorithm is that the cost difference between two neighbor solutions is estimated by partial evaluation. Moreover, the proposed algorithm exploits the well known TSP neighborhood reduction techniques to speed up the search. Developed in C with GNU scientific library under Linux. (With Mauro Birattari and Thomas Stützle)

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Before 2011

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Journal articles
Book chapters
Theses
Conference/Workshop articles
Extended abstracts

Journal articles:

Book chapters:

M. Birattari, Z. Yuan, P. Balaprakash, and T. Stützle: F-Race and iterated F-Race: An overview of racing algorithms for algorithm tuning and design. In T. Bartz-Beielstein et. al (Eds.), Experimental Methods for the Analysis of Optimization Algorithms. Theoretical Computer Science, Berlin, Germany, 2010. Springer Verlag. [DOI].

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, and T. Stützle. Engineering stochastic local search algorithms: A case study in estimation-based local search for the probabilistic travelling salesman problem. In C. Cotta and J. van Hemert (Eds.), Recent Advances in Evolutionary Computation for Combinatorial Optimization, volume 153 of Studies in Computational Intelligence, pages 53-66, Berlin, Germany, 2008. Springer Verlag. [DOI]

M. Birattari, P. Balaprakash, and M. Dorigo. The ACO/F-RACE algorithm for combinatorial optimization under uncertainty. In K. F. Doerner et. al. (Eds.), Metaheuristics - Progress in Complex Systems Optimization, Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series, pages 189-203, Berlin, Germany, 2006. Springer Verlag. [DOI]

Theses:

P. Balaprakash: Estimation-based metaheuristics for stochastic combinatorial optimization: Case studies in stochastic routing problems. Ph.D. thesis, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2010. [PDF]

P. Balaprakash: Ant colony optimization under uncertainty. D.E.A. thesis, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2005. [PDF]

P. Balaprakash: Preprocessing of stochastic Petri nets and an improved storage strategy for proxel based simulation. Master's thesis, Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Germany, 2004. [PDF]

Conference/workshop articles:

M. Birattari, Z. Yuan, P. Balaprakash, T. Stützle. Automated algorithm tuning using F-races: Recent developments. MIC 2009: the eighth Metaheuristics International Conference, July 13-16, 2009, Hamburg, Germany.

Z. Yuan, A. Fügenschuh, H. Homfeld, P. Balaprakash, T. Stützle, M. Schoch. Hybrid iterated constructive algorithms for scheduling locomotives in freight transport. In M. J. Blesa et. al. (Eds.) Hybrid Metaheuristics: the fifth International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics, LNCS, 5296 pp. 102-116. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Sampling strategies and local search for stochastic combinatorial optimization. Doctoral Symposium on Engineering Stochastic Local Search Algorithms, September 6-8, 2007, Brussels, Belgium.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, and T. Stützle. Improvement strategies for the F-Race algorithm: Sampling design and iterative refinement. In T. Bartz-Beielstein et. al. (Eds.) HM 2007: the fourth International Workshop on Hybrid Metaheuristics, LNCS, 4771 pp. 113-127. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Incremental local search in ant colony optimization: Why it fails for the quadratic assignment problem. In M. Dorigo et. al. (Eds.) Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence, the fifth International Workshop, ANTS 2006, LNCS 4150 pp. 156-166. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

M. Birattari, P. Balaprakash, and M. Dorigo. ACO/F-Race: Ant colony optimization and racing techniques for combinatorial optimization under uncertainty, In R. F. Hartl et. al. (Eds.) MIC 2005: the sixth Metaheuristics International Conference, August 22-26, 2005, Vienna, Austria.

D.G. Leo Prakash, P. Balaprakash, D. Regener. Computational microstructure analyzing technique for quantitative characterization of shrinkage and gas pores in pressure die cast AZ91 magnesium alloys. The thirteenth International Workshop on Computational Mechanics of Materials, September 22-23, 2003, Magdeburg, Germany.

Extended abstracts:

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Effective estimation-based stochastic local search algorithms for stochastic routing problems. In Schyns et. al. (Eds.), 24th Conference on Quantitative Methods for Decision Making, ORBEL 24, January 28-29, 2010, Liége, Belgium.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Estimation-based stochastic local search algorithms for the stochastic routing problems. META '08: Second international conference on metaheuristics and nature inspired computing, October 29-31, 2008, Hammamet, Tunisia.

G. di Tollo and P. Balaprakash. Index tracking by estimation-based local search. Workshop on Computational and Financial Econometrics '08, June 19-21, 2008, Neuchatel, Switzerland.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Applications of estimation-based SLS algorithms to the stochastic routing problems. Metaheuristics 2008, Second international workshop on model based metaheuristics, June 16-18, 2008, Bertinoro, Italy.

P. Balaprakash, M. Birattari, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. An experimental study of estimation-based metaheuristics for the probabilistic traveling salesman problem. Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN, LION 2007 II, December 8-12, 2007, Trento, Italy.

M. Birattari, P. Balaprakash, T. Stützle, and M. Dorigo. Estimation-based local search for the probabilistic traveling salesman problem. In M. Gendreau et. al (Eds.) MIC 2007: Seventh Metaheuristics International Conference, June 25-29, 2007, Montreal, Canada.