An electromagnetism-like method for the maximum set splitting problem

Abstract

In this paper, an electromagnetism-like approach (EM) for solving the maximum set splitting problem (MSSP) is applied. Hybrid approach consisting of the movement based on the attraction-repulsion mechanisms combined with the proposed scaling technique directs EM to promising search regions. Fast implementation of the local search procedure additionally improves the efficiency of overall EM system. The performance of the proposed EM approach is evaluated on two classes of instances from the literature: minimum hitting set and Steiner triple systems. The results show, except in one case, that EM reaches optimal solutions up to 500 elements and 50000 subsets on minimum hitting set instances. It also reaches all optimal/best-known solutions for Steiner triple systems.