A GRASP algorithm with Tabu Search improvement for solving the maximum intersection of k-subsets problem

The selection of individuals with similar characteristics from a given population have always been a matter of interest in several scientific areas: data privacy, genetics, art, among others. This work is focused on the maximum intersection of k-subsets problem (kMIS). This problem tries to find a subset of k individuals with the maximum number of features in common from a given population and a set of relevant features. The research presents a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) where the local improvement is replaced by a complete Tabu Search metaheuristic with the aim of further improving the quality of the obtained solutions. Additionally, a novel representation of the solution is considered to reduce the computational effort. The experimental comparison carefully analyzes the contribution of each part of the algorithm to the final results as well as performs a thorough comparison with the state-of-the-art method. Results, supported by non-parametric statistical tests, confirms the superiority of the proposal.