  The Pattern self-Assembly Tile set Synthesis (PATS) problem, which arises in
the theory of structured DNA self-assembly, is to determine a set of coloured
tiles that, starting from a bordering seed structure, self-assembles to a given
rectangular colour pattern. The task of finding minimum-size tile sets is known
to be NP-hard. We explore several complete and incomplete search techniques for
finding minimal, or at least small, tile sets and also assess the reliability
of the solutions obtained according to the kinetic Tile Assembly Model.
