PANMIN
Sequential and parallel global optimization procedures
with a variety of options for the local search strategy


PANMIN is a suite of programs for global optimization that take advantage of the Merlin/MCL environment. Specificaly PANMIN contains implementations of two algorithms that belong to the stochastic class.

The first one is a modification of the "Controlled Random Search" (CRS) originally introduced by Price (W. L. Price in Toward Global Optimization 2, L.C.W. Dixon and G.P.Szego eds.), and aims to locate only one global minimum.

The second one is the "Healed Topographical Multilevel Single Linkage" (HTMLSL) that is based on the Multi Level Single Linkage method of Kan and Timmer (Math. Prog. 39, 1987, 27, Math. Prog. 39, 1987, 57, Ph.D. Thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam), with topographical modifications inspired from the articles by Ali and Storey (J. Glob. Opt. 5, 1994, 349) and by Törn and Viitanen (J. Glob. Opt. 5, 1994, 267).

The above two codes are sequential and do not take advantage of environments with multiple processors. Note that CRS can hardly benefit from such a computational environment due to the nature of its algorithmic structure. HTMLSL lends itself to parallel processing and PANMIN contains a parallel implementation of the algorithm that uses the Message Passing Interface (MPI) to take advantage of either a shared memory architecture or a distributed environment with interconnected computers.

PANMIN is described in the following article:
PANMIN: Sequential and Parallel Global Optimization Procedures with a variety of options for the local search strategy,
F.V. Theos, I. E. Lagaris, D. G. Papageorgiou,
Comp. Phys. Commun. 159 (2004) 63-69.

Download the complete PANMIN Distribution (panmin-1.0.tar.gz).
Donwload the article localy (panmin-1.0.ps) or from the CPC journal.


Comments on the PANMIN pages are always welcome: jimmy@nrt.cs.uoi.gr