Hybrid GRASP heuristics for the phylogeny problem combining path-relinking and genetic algorithm as an intensification strategy

• Main Authors: Dalessandro Soares Vianna, Marcilene de Fátima Dianin Vianna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Associação Brasileira de Engenharia de Produção (ABEPRO) 2014-09-01
• Series: Production
• Subjects: Phylogeny problem; Evolutionary trees; GRASP; Path-relinking; Genetic algorithm; Heuristics
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-65132014000300014&lng=en&tlng=en

A phylogeny is a tree that relates taxonomic units based on their similarity over a set of characteristics. The phylogeny problem under the parsimony criterion consists in finding a phylogeny with a minimum number of evolutionary steps. We propose hybrid heuristic methods - based on GRASP, path-relinking and genetic algorithm methodologies - to build a phylogeny while minimizing parsimony. Computational experiments using benchmark conditions are reported, and the results obtained by the proposed hybrid heuristics are compared with the solutions obtained by a traditional GRASP (without hybridization) heuristic and with previously reported solutions in the literature. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed heuristics are efficient in terms of solution quality and time-to-target-value.