12. An article comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium operable to cause one or more machines to result in operations comprising: arranging objects into candidate solutions for a problem; constructing a shortlist of candidate solutions, the shortlist comprising a predetermined number of candidate solutions at the current optimization stage for a current object, each candidate solution associated with a score, each candidate solution in the shortlist having an associated score that is greater than an associated score of each candidate solution not in the shortlist; picking randomly a candidate solution from said shortlist of candidate solutions; determining if an application of said candidate solutions is acceptable according to a probabilistic acceptance criteria at a current temperature, the current temperature representing an iteration of temperature out of a plurality of iterations of temperature from a first temperature to a second temperature; replacing a current candidate solution with said picked candidate solution, if said picked candidate solution is acceptable; repeating, at each iteration of temperature, the picking, the determining, and the replacing until no acceptable candidate solutions from said shortlist of candidate solutions remain; establishing said current candidate solution as an output candidate solution wherein said output candidate solution has a high confidence level of having a maximum of utility for solving said problem; and outputting said output candidate solution for display to a user for use in solving said problem.
20. The article of claim 12 , further comprising: setting said dimension dependent threshold by recording separate dimension decreases during a first iteration.