What is the difference between a heuristic and an algorithm?
I think Heuristic is more of a constraint used in Learning Based Model in Artificial Intelligent since the future solution states are difficult to predict.
But then my doubt after reading above answers is "How would Heuristic can be successfully applied using Stochastic Optimization Techniques? or can they function as full fledged algorithms when used with Stochastic Optimization?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_optimization