An algebraic differential evolution for the linear ordering problem

In this paper we propose a discrete algebraic-based Differential Evolution for the Linear Ordering Problem (LOP). The search space of LOP is composed by permutations of objects, thus it is possible to use some group theoretical concepts and methods. Indeed, the proposed algorithm is a fully discrete Differential Evolution scheme and has been designed by exploiting the group structure of LOP solutions in order to mimic the classical Differential Evolution behavior observed in continuous numerical spaces. The performances have been evaluated over widely known LOP benchmark suites and have been compared to the state-of-the-art results.