Document Type

Thesis - University Access Only

Award Date

1994

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Computer Science

First Advisor

Bin Cong

Abstract

Efficient methods to find and retrieve stored information are a necessary and integral part of useful and responsive computer systems. Algorithms responsible for this task are called search algorithms. Heuristic search techniques are an important subset of the search algorithms because of the minimum amount of time they need to find a solution. Their one drawback is the fact that they may not find the optimal solution. This limits their applicability but they remain a viable alternative for many problem spaces, particularly where the search solution's quality is relative rather than absolute, as is the case in typical Artificial Intelligence applications. In this thesis, the performance characteristics of several heuristic search techniques are investigated and compared. By observing these proposed heuristic search methods in action on a given problem space, an attempt is made to develop a feel for the "quality" of the solutions found by such methods. In other words, what is the mean ranking of a solution found by these techniques? Can we be sure that the solution is better than average? How can the quality of the solution be increased?

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Computer algorithms
Heuristic programming

Format

application/pdf

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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Rights Statement

In Copyright