1. A selection process designed to select optimized results from a plurality of possible results represented in a search tree, the process comprising: employing a tree-search, wherein bounds are used to prune at least one node or branch of the search tree; invoking a non-overlapping support constraint in conjunction with the tree search to further prune the search tree, wherein the non-overlapping support constraint which requires that any one node or branch must support at most one other accepted node or branch which has been selected by the tree search process is relaxed to permit support of more than one other accepted node or branch; storing an optimized search tree into memory, following the invoking of the non-overlapping support constraint; and employing the optimized search tree in additional processing operations.