Estimating the distribution in an EDA

This paper presents an extension to our work on estimating the probability distribution by using a Markov Random Field (MRF) model in an Estimation of Distribution Algorithm (EDA) [1]. We propose a method that directly samples a MRF model to generate new population. We also present a new EDA, called the Distribution Estimation Using MRF with direct sampling (DEUMd), that uses this method, and iteratively refines the probability distribution to generate better solutions. Our experiments show that the direct sampling of a MRF model as estimation of distribution provides a significant advantage over other techniques on problems where a univariate EDA is typically used.