Tabu Search techniques-A tutorial and an application to neural networks

Tabu Search is a general heuristic procedure for global optimization. Based on simple ideas it has been extremely efficient in getting almost optimal solutions for many types of difficult combinatorial optimization problems. The principles of Tabu Search are discribed and illustrations are given. An example of problem type where the use of Tabu Search has drastically cut down the computational effort is presented; it consists of the learning process of an associative memory represented by a neural network.