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Evolutionary dynamics of structured genetic algorithms: Difference between revisions

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People:
People:
[[Xin Wang]],
[[Xin Wang]] and
[[Felix Hol]],
[[Felix Hol]]
[[Samuel Scarpino]] and
[[Florian Sabou]]


The spatial structure of an evolving (meta)population can have profound effects on its evolutionary dynamics. We investigate and quantify the ability of populations with very different population structure to evolve.  
The spatial structure of an evolving (meta)population can have profound effects on its evolutionary dynamics. We investigate and quantify the ability of populations with different population structures to evolve.  


====The model====
The computational model we use for our study extends on work by Mitchell & Crutchfield (and coworkers) in which a genetic algorithm (GA) evolves a population of cellular automata (CA) rules to perform a density classification task. The CAs are one-dimensional binary-state cellular automata and have neighborhood size (radius) r=3. The lattice starts out with L cells that are either 0 or 1. At each time step every cell examines its local neighborhood and updates its state according to the CA rule. Crutchfield and Mitchell have defined a simple computational task in which the CA needs to decide whether the lattice initially contains more or less than 50% 1's. The CA answers this question by settling to all 0's when the majority of the initial condition (IC) is 0 and all 1's when the IC consists of 1's for more than half.


Modeling evolutionary dynamics of spatially structured populations -- I am very interested in the interplay between ecology and evolution. Motivated by Sewall Wright's seminal 1932 [http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/wright.pdf paper] I would like to investigate the effect that metapopulation formation has on the speed of evolution. The computational model to investigate this could be based on work by Mitchell & Crutchfield (and coworkers) where a genetic algorithm evolves a population of cellular automata to perform a certain task (see this [http://www.pnas.org/content/92/23/10742.full.pdf paper]).  
The number of possible CA rules with r=3, is 2<sup>2r+1</sup> (=2<sup>128</sup>); this number is far too large for an exhaustive search for the best CA rule. We will use genetic algorithms (GA) to evolve CA rules to perform the density classification task. These GAs will have will have different spatial structures such as a well mixed CA population, CAs distributed on lattices and CAs as nodes in small world/scale free networks. We are interested in a) what kind of GA gives the best performance, in other words, shows that highest evolvability, and, b) given the population structure that comes out best, can we optimize this structure in terms of robustness, evolvability and speed. We aim to investigate (b) by using dynamic population structures.
I propose to embed population structure in the genetic algorithm (GA) and find out what effect this has on the capabilities of the GA. One way of doing this might be to (bluntly) define subpopulations that cross breed at specified intervals; but I am sure that there are much more elegant/sophisticated ways of embedding structure. Some (wild) ideas for this are: putting them on graphs or lattices (with or without vacancies/movement)…. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! (also other ideas for modeling stuff like this (evolutionary game theory etc..) are welcome)
 
 
 
 
====References====
*Crutchfield and Mitchell PNAS 1995 [http://www.pnas.org/content/92/23/10742.full.pdf]
*Mitchell et al Physica D [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6TVK-46TY4NH-V-1&_cdi=5537&_user=499885&_pii=0167278994902933&_orig=search&_coverDate=08%2F01%2F1994&_sk=999249998&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlW-zSkWb&md5=74a4e7dd25a6e04170a03713be36b7c3&ie=/sdarticle.pdf]
*Wrigth 1932 [http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/wright.pdf]

Latest revision as of 00:36, 22 June 2010

People: Xin Wang and Felix Hol

The spatial structure of an evolving (meta)population can have profound effects on its evolutionary dynamics. We investigate and quantify the ability of populations with different population structures to evolve.

The model

The computational model we use for our study extends on work by Mitchell & Crutchfield (and coworkers) in which a genetic algorithm (GA) evolves a population of cellular automata (CA) rules to perform a density classification task. The CAs are one-dimensional binary-state cellular automata and have neighborhood size (radius) r=3. The lattice starts out with L cells that are either 0 or 1. At each time step every cell examines its local neighborhood and updates its state according to the CA rule. Crutchfield and Mitchell have defined a simple computational task in which the CA needs to decide whether the lattice initially contains more or less than 50% 1's. The CA answers this question by settling to all 0's when the majority of the initial condition (IC) is 0 and all 1's when the IC consists of 1's for more than half.

The number of possible CA rules with r=3, is 22r+1 (=2128); this number is far too large for an exhaustive search for the best CA rule. We will use genetic algorithms (GA) to evolve CA rules to perform the density classification task. These GAs will have will have different spatial structures such as a well mixed CA population, CAs distributed on lattices and CAs as nodes in small world/scale free networks. We are interested in a) what kind of GA gives the best performance, in other words, shows that highest evolvability, and, b) given the population structure that comes out best, can we optimize this structure in terms of robustness, evolvability and speed. We aim to investigate (b) by using dynamic population structures.



References

  • Crutchfield and Mitchell PNAS 1995 [1]
  • Mitchell et al Physica D [2]
  • Wrigth 1932 [3]