A Study of Evaluation Functions for the Graph K-Coloring Problem

The evaluation or fitness function is a key component ofany heuristic search algorithm. This paper introduces a new evaluationfunction for the well-known graph K-coloring problem. This functiontakes into account not only the number of conflicting vertices, but alsoinherent information related to the structure of the graph. To assessthe effectiveness of this new evaluation function, we carry out a numberof experiments using a set of DIMACS benchmark graphs. Based onstatistic data obtained with a parameter free steepest descent, we showan improvement of the new evaluation function over the classical one.

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