Sometimes thinking a bit helps to rush decisions that may lead to weird places. Today I was going over a simple genetic algorithm for numeric optimization written in C. The code is nothing special, tournament selection without replacement, SBX crossover operator, and polynomial mutation. To the point, I was running a simple OneMax-like problem (in this case, minimize the value of the sum of all the genes), and I was quite surprised the guy was taking so long for. ...
by Llorà, X. IlliGAL technical report 2009001. You can download the pdf here. Abstract: Data-intensive computing has positioned itself as a valuable programming paradigm to efficiently approach problems requiring processing very large volumes of data. This paper presents a pilot study about how to apply the data-intensive computing paradigm to evolutionary computation algorithms. Two representative cases—selectorecombinative genetic algorithms and estimation of distribution algorithms—are presented, analyzed, discussed. This study shows that equivalent data-intensive computing evolutionary computation algorithms can be easily developed, providing robust and scalable algorithms for the multicore-computing era. Experimental results show how such algorithms scale with the number of available cores without further modification. ...
I just ran into the comic strip below at xkcd. I am still laughing now. Fitness functions are tricky. Once somebody told me that genetic algorithms always get their target; the main problem is to explain what the target is. If you want to learn a “fountain pen”, you better be accurate defining it or you may end up getting an unexpected all-terrain “pencil”. Yes, I know the example is quite solution free, but still has some truth to it. How many times have you end up getting something you did not expect, only because evolution find a better fitted crack in your description? Anyway, it is fun what you end running into on the Internet ;) ...
Martin Pelikan just posted on the MEDAL and IlliGAL blogs that the GECCO 2009 paper submission deadline has been extended till January 28. Always, great news to finish polishing last minute changes :D It seems that the website is not yet updated, neither emails sent to the usual mailing lists. Just a matter or time I guess ;) And since I am talking about GECCO 2009, you may also want to take a look at the competitions announcement video that Pier Luca Lanzi put together below. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7cbgBOkn-s ...
After attending Albert Orriols’s Ph.D. thesis defense, I ended wondering how many of the question I posted in mine have not been solved. The answer, quite a bit. So, I just decided to dig it up, and put it up here. Yes, the thesis was not written in English (in those days my fellowship had some strings attached), but math formulation, graphs, and results are readable in any language ;) Also, GALE was written and documented in english, and is available here. ...