Students who complete this unit will demonstrate that they can:

• Describe and explain the local search paradigm for problem solving.
• Compare and contrast the local and global search algorithms.
• Describe the problem of combinatorial explosion of search space and its consequences.
• Compare and contrast genetic algorithms with classic search techniques.
• Compare and contrast various heuristic searches vis-a-vis applicability to a given problem
• Design and implement a hill-climbing search algorithm.
• Design and implement a simulated annealing schedule to avoid local minima in a problem.