Prestwich, Steven D.Rossi, RobertoTarim, S. Armagan2020-06-022020-06-022015Prestwich, Steven D.; Rossi, Roberto; Tarim, S. Armagan, "Randomness as a constraint" Principles And Practice Of Constraint Programming, Cp 2015, Vol.9255, pp.351-366, (2015).978331923219597833192321880302-97431611-3349https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23219-5_25Rossi, Roberto/0000-0001-7247-1010; Tarim, S. Armagan/0000-0001-5601-3968; Prestwich, Steven/0000-0002-6218-9158Some optimisation problems require a random-looking solution with no apparent patterns, for reasons of fairness, anonymity, undetectability or unpredictability. Randomised search is not a good general approach because problem constraints and objective functions may lead to solutions that are far from random. We propose a constraint-based approach to finding pseudo-random solutions, inspired by the Kolmogorov complexity definition of randomness and by data compression methods. Our "entropy constraints" can be implemented in constraint programming systems using well-known global constraints. We apply them to a problem from experimental psychology and to a factory inspection problem.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessConference Object925535136610.1007/978-3-319-23219-5_252-s2.0-84944528814WOS:000364707100025N/AQ3