In this paper the performance of the Hamming-based Reactive Tabu Search algorithm (H-RTS) previously proposed for the Maximum Satisÿability problem is studied for the di erent Maximum k-Conjunctive Constraint Satisfaction problem. In addition, the use of non-oblivious functions recently proposed in the framework of approximation algorithms is investigated. In particular, two relevant special cases of the Maximum k-Conjunctive Constraint Satisfaction problem are considered: Maximum Directed Cut

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... nd Maximum Independent Set in cubic graphs. The preliminary diversiÿcation-bias analysis of the basic components shows a remarkable di erence between the two problems, and the derived predictions are then validated by extensive experiments with the complete H-RTS algorithm. The performance of H-RTS is compared with that of Simulated Annealing and simple Repeated Local Search. ? 0166-218X/99/$ -see front matter ? 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII: S 0 1 6 6 -2 1 8 X ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 0 -X