Genetic and Evolutionary Computation – serie

Evolvable hardware (EHW) refers to hardware whose architecture/structure and functions change dynamically and autonomously in order to improve its performance in carrying out tasks. The emergence of this field has been profoundly influenced by the progress in reconfigurable hardware and evolutionary computation. Traditional hardware can be inflexible – the structure and its functions are often impossible to change once it is created. However, most real world problems are not fixed – they change with time. In order to deal with these problems efficiently and effectively, different hardware structures are necessary. EHW provides an ideal approach to make hardware "soft" by adapting the structure to a problem dynamically. The contributions in this book provide the basics of reconfigurable devices so that readers will be fully prepared to understand what EHW is, why it is necessary and how it is designed. The book also discusses the leading research in digital, analog and mechanical EHW.

Linear Genetic Programming presents a variant of genetic programming (GP) that evolves imperative computer programs as linear sequences of instructions, in contrast to the more traditional functional expressions or syntax trees. Primary characteristics of linear program structure are exploited to achieve acceleration of both execution time and evolutionary progress. Online analysis and optimization of program code lead to more efficient techniques and contribute to a better understanding of the method and its parameters. In particular, the reduction of structural variation step size and non-effective variations play a key role in finding higher quality and less complex solutions. Typical GP phenomena, such as non-effective code, neutral variations, and code growth are investigated from the perspective of linear GP.This book serves as a reference for researchers; it also contains sufficient introductory material for students and those who are new to the field.

This book provides theoretical and practical knowledge for develop­ ment of algorithms that infer linear and nonlinear models. It offers a methodology for inductive learning of polynomial neural network mod­ els from data. The design of such tools contributes to better statistical data modelling when addressing tasks from various areas like system identification, chaotic time-series prediction, financial forecasting and data mining. The main claim is that the model identification process involves several equally important steps: finding the model structure, estimating the model weight parameters, and tuning these weights with respect to the adopted assumptions about the underlying data distrib­ ution. When the learning process is organized according to these steps, performed together one after the other or separately, one may expect to discover models that generalize well (that is, predict well). The book off'ers statisticians a shift in focus from the standard f- ear models toward highly nonlinear models that can be found by con­ temporary learning approaches. Speciafists in statistical learning will read about alternative probabilistic search algorithms that discover the model architecture, and neural network training techniques that identify accurate polynomial weights. They wfil be pleased to find out that the discovered models can be easily interpreted, and these models assume statistical diagnosis by standard statistical means. Covering the three fields of: evolutionary computation, neural net­ works and Bayesian inference, orients the book to a large audience of researchers and practitioners.

Solving multi-objective problems is an evolving effort, and computer science and other related disciplines have given rise to many powerful deterministic and stochastic techniques for addressing these large-dimensional optimization problems. Evolutionary algorithms are one such generic stochastic approach that has proven to be successful and widely applicable in solving both single-objective and multi-objective problems. This textbook is a second edition of Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems, significantly expanded and adapted for the classroom. The various features of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are presented here in an innovative and student-friendly fashion, incorporating state-of-the-art research. The book disseminates the application of evolutionary algorithm techniques to a variety of practical problems, including test suites with associated performance based on a variety of appropriate metrics, as well as serial and parallel algorithm implementations.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice IV was developed from the fourth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.This volume represents a watershed moment in the GP field in that GP has begun to move from hand-crafted software used primarily in academic research, to an engineering methodology applied to commercial applications. It is a unique and indispensable tool for academics, researchers and industry professionals involved in GP, evolutionary computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice V was developed from the fifth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.The work covers applications of GP to a wide variety of domains, including bioinformatics, symbolic regression for system modeling, financial modeling, circuit design and robot controllers. This volume is a unique and indispensable tool for academics, researchers and industry professionals involved in GP, evolutionary computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VI was developed from the sixth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.These contributions address several significant interdependent themes which emerged from this year’s workshop, including: (1) Making efficient and effective use of test data. (2) Sustaining the long-term evolvability of our GP systems. (3) Exploiting discovered subsolutions for reuse. (4) Increasing the role of a Domain Expert.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VII presents the results of the annual Genetic Programming Theory and Practice Workshop, contributed by the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena. Contributions examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, and explore the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application. Application areas include chemical process control, circuit design, financial data mining and bio-informatics, to name a few.About this book: Discusses the hurdles encountered when solving large-scale, cutting-edge applications, provides in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant applications of GP and the most recent theoretical results with direct applicability to state-of-the-art problems. Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VII is suitable for researchers, practitioners and students of Genetic Programming, including industry technical staffs, technical consultants and business entrepreneurs.

Evolvable hardware (EHW) refers to hardware whose architecture/structure and functions change dynamically and autonomously in order to improve its performance in carrying out tasks. The emergence of this field has been profoundly influenced by the progress in reconfigurable hardware and evolutionary computation. Traditional hardware can be inflexible – the structure and its functions are often impossible to change once it is created. However, most real world problems are not fixed – they change with time. In order to deal with these problems efficiently and effectively, different hardware structures are necessary. EHW provides an ideal approach to make hardware "soft" by adapting the structure to a problem dynamically. The contributions in this book provide the basics of reconfigurable devices so that readers will be fully prepared to understand what EHW is, why it is necessary and how it is designed. The book also discusses the leading research in digital, analog and mechanical EHW.

Linear Genetic Programming presents a variant of genetic programming (GP) that evolves imperative computer programs as linear sequences of instructions, in contrast to the more traditional functional expressions or syntax trees. Primary characteristics of linear program structure are exploited to achieve acceleration of both execution time and evolutionary progress. Online analysis and optimization of program code lead to more efficient techniques and contribute to a better understanding of the method and its parameters. In particular, the reduction of structural variation step size and non-effective variations play a key role in finding higher quality and less complex solutions. Typical GP phenomena, such as non-effective code, neutral variations, and code growth are investigated from the perspective of linear GP.This book serves as a reference for researchers; it also contains sufficient introductory material for students and those who are new to the field.

This book provides theoretical and practical knowledge for develop­ ment of algorithms that infer linear and nonlinear models. It offers a methodology for inductive learning of polynomial neural network mod­ els from data. The design of such tools contributes to better statistical data modelling when addressing tasks from various areas like system identification, chaotic time-series prediction, financial forecasting and data mining. The main claim is that the model identification process involves several equally important steps: finding the model structure, estimating the model weight parameters, and tuning these weights with respect to the adopted assumptions about the underlying data distrib­ ution. When the learning process is organized according to these steps, performed together one after the other or separately, one may expect to discover models that generalize well (that is, predict well). The book off'ers statisticians a shift in focus from the standard f- ear models toward highly nonlinear models that can be found by con­ temporary learning approaches. Speciafists in statistical learning will read about alternative probabilistic search algorithms that discover the model architecture, and neural network training techniques that identify accurate polynomial weights. They wfil be pleased to find out that the discovered models can be easily interpreted, and these models assume statistical diagnosis by standard statistical means. Covering the three fields of: evolutionary computation, neural net­ works and Bayesian inference, orients the book to a large audience of researchers and practitioners.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice IV was developed from the fourth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.This volume represents a watershed moment in the GP field in that GP has begun to move from hand-crafted software used primarily in academic research, to an engineering methodology applied to commercial applications. It is a unique and indispensable tool for academics, researchers and industry professionals involved in GP, evolutionary computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice V was developed from the fifth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.The work covers applications of GP to a wide variety of domains, including bioinformatics, symbolic regression for system modeling, financial modeling, circuit design and robot controllers. This volume is a unique and indispensable tool for academics, researchers and industry professionals involved in GP, evolutionary computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VI was developed from the sixth workshop at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Complex Systems to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information related to the rapidly advancing field of Genetic Programming (GP). Contributions from the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.These contributions address several significant interdependent themes which emerged from this year’s workshop, including: (1) Making efficient and effective use of test data. (2) Sustaining the long-term evolvability of our GP systems. (3) Exploiting discovered subsolutions for reuse. (4) Increasing the role of a Domain Expert.

The contributions in this volume are written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena. They examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.Topics include: FINCH: A System for Evolving Java, Practical Autoconstructive Evolution, The Rubik Cube and GP Temporal Sequence Learning, Ensemble classifiers: AdaBoost and Orthogonal Evolution of Teams, Self-modifying Cartesian GP, Abstract Expression Grammar Symbolic Regression, Age-Fitness Pareto Optimization, Scalable Symbolic Regression by Continuous Evolution, Symbolic Density Models, GP Transforms in Linear Regression Situations, Protein Interactions in a Computational Evolution System, Composition of Music and Financial Strategies via GP, and Evolutionary Art Using Summed Multi-Objective Ranks.Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results in GP .

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP.Topics include: modularity and scalability; evolvability; human-competitive results; the need for important high-impact GP-solvable problems;; the risks of search stagnation and of cutting off paths to solutions; the need for novelty; empowering GP search with expert knowledge;In addition, GP symbolic regression is thoroughly discussed, addressing such topics as guaranteed reproducibility of SR; validating SR results, measuring and controlling genotypic complexity; controlling phenotypic complexity; identifying, monitoring, and avoiding over-fitting; finding a comprehensive collection of SR benchmarks, comparing SR to machine learning. This text is for all GP explorers. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VII presents the results of the annual Genetic Programming Theory and Practice Workshop, contributed by the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena. Contributions examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, and explore the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application. Application areas include chemical process control, circuit design, financial data mining and bio-informatics, to name a few.About this book: Discusses the hurdles encountered when solving large-scale, cutting-edge applications, provides in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant applications of GP and the most recent theoretical results with direct applicability to state-of-the-art problems. Genetic Programming Theory and Practice VII is suitable for researchers, practitioners and students of Genetic Programming, including industry technical staffs, technical consultants and business entrepreneurs.

The contributions in this volume are written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners in the GP arena. They examine the similarities and differences between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems. The text explores the synergy between theory and practice, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP application.Topics include: FINCH: A System for Evolving Java, Practical Autoconstructive Evolution, The Rubik Cube and GP Temporal Sequence Learning, Ensemble classifiers: AdaBoost and Orthogonal Evolution of Teams, Self-modifying Cartesian GP, Abstract Expression Grammar Symbolic Regression, Age-Fitness Pareto Optimization, Scalable Symbolic Regression by Continuous Evolution, Symbolic Density Models, GP Transforms in Linear Regression Situations, Protein Interactions in a Computational Evolution System, Composition of Music and Financial Strategies via GP, and Evolutionary Art Using Summed Multi-Objective Ranks.Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results in GP .

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP.Topics include: modularity and scalability; evolvability; human-competitive results; the need for important high-impact GP-solvable problems;; the risks of search stagnation and of cutting off paths to solutions; the need for novelty; empowering GP search with expert knowledge;In addition, GP symbolic regression is thoroughly discussed, addressing such topics as guaranteed reproducibility of SR; validating SR results, measuring and controlling genotypic complexity; controlling phenotypic complexity; identifying, monitoring, and avoiding over-fitting; finding a comprehensive collection of SR benchmarks, comparing SR to machine learning. This text is for all GP explorers. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: evolutionary constraints, relaxation of selection mechanisms, diversity preservation strategies, flexing fitness evaluation, evolution in dynamic environments, multi-objective and multi-modal selection, foundations of evolvability, evolvable and adaptive evolutionary operators, foundation of  injecting expert knowledge in evolutionary search, analysis of problem difficulty and required GP algorithm complexity, foundations in running GP on the cloud – communication, cooperation, flexible implementation, and ensemble methods. Additional focal points for GP symbolic regression are: (1) The need to guarantee convergence to solutions in the function discovery mode; (2) Issues on model validation; (3) The need for model analysis workflows for insight generation based on generated GP solutions – model exploration, visualization, variable selection, dimensionality analysis; (4) Issues in combining different types of data. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

Solving multi-objective problems is an evolving effort, and computer science and other related disciplines have given rise to many powerful deterministic and stochastic techniques for addressing these large-dimensional optimization problems. Evolutionary algorithms are one such generic stochastic approach that has proven to be successful and widely applicable in solving both single-objective and multi-objective problems. This textbook is a second edition of Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems, significantly expanded and adapted for the classroom. The various features of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are presented here in an innovative and student-friendly fashion, incorporating state-of-the-art research. The book disseminates the application of evolutionary algorithm techniques to a variety of practical problems, including test suites with associated performance based on a variety of appropriate metrics, as well as serial and parallel algorithm implementations.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: evolutionary constraints, relaxation of selection mechanisms, diversity preservation strategies, flexing fitness evaluation, evolution in dynamic environments, multi-objective and multi-modal selection, foundations of evolvability, evolvable and adaptive evolutionary operators, foundation of  injecting expert knowledge in evolutionary search, analysis of problem difficulty and required GP algorithm complexity, foundations in running GP on the cloud – communication, cooperation, flexible implementation, and ensemble methods. Additional focal points for GP symbolic regression are: (1) The need to guarantee convergence to solutions in the function discovery mode; (2) Issues on model validation; (3) The need for model analysis workflows for insight generation based on generated GP solutions – model exploration, visualization, variable selection, dimensionality analysis; (4) Issues in combining different types of data. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: evolutionary constraints, relaxation of selection mechanisms, diversity preservation strategies, flexing fitness evaluation, evolution in dynamic environments, multi-objective and multi-modal selection, foundations of evolvability, evolvable and adaptive evolutionary operators, foundation of injecting expert knowledge in evolutionary search, analysis of problem difficulty and required GP algorithm complexity, foundations in running GP on the cloud – communication, cooperation, flexible implementation, and ensemble methods. Additional focal points for GP symbolic regression are: (1) The need to guarantee convergence to solutions in the function discovery mode; (2) Issues on model validation; (3)The need for model analysis workflows for insight generation based on generated GP solutions – model exploration, visualization, variable selection, dimensionality analysis; (4) Issues in combining different types of data. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: evolutionary constraints, relaxation of selection mechanisms, diversity preservation strategies, flexing fitness evaluation, evolution in dynamic environments, multi-objective and multi-modal selection, foundations of evolvability, evolvable and adaptive evolutionary operators, foundation of injecting expert knowledge in evolutionary search, analysis of problem difficulty and required GP algorithm complexity, foundations in running GP on the cloud – communication, cooperation, flexible implementation, and ensemble methods. Additional focal points for GP symbolic regression are: (1) The need to guarantee convergence to solutions in the function discovery mode; (2) Issues on model validation; (3)The need for model analysis workflows for insight generation based on generated GP solutions – model exploration, visualization, variable selection, dimensionality analysis; (4) Issues in combining different types of data. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: evolving developmental programs for neural networks solving multiple problems, tangled program, transfer learning and outlier detection using GP, program search for machine learning pipelines in reinforcement learning, automatic programming with GP, new variants of GP, like SignalGP, variants of lexicase selection, and symbolic regression and classification techniques. The volume includes several chapters on best practices and lessons learned from hands-on experience. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Chapters in this volume include: Similarity-based Analysis of Population Dynamics in GP Performing Symbolic RegressionHybrid Structural and Behavioral Diversity Methods in GPMulti-Population Competitive Coevolution for Anticipation of Tax EvasionEvolving Artificial General Intelligence for Video Game ControllersA Detailed Analysis of a PushGP RunLinear Genomes for Structured ProgramsNeutrality, Robustness, and Evolvability in GPLocal Search in GPPRETSL: Distributed Probabilistic Rule Evolution for Time-Series ClassificationRelational Structure in Program Synthesis Problems with Analogical ReasoningAn Evolutionary Algorithm for Big Data Multi-Class Classification ProblemsA Generic Framework for Building Dispersion Operators in the Semantic SpaceAssisting Asset Model Development with Evolutionary AugmentationBuilding Blocks of Machine Learning Pipelines for Initialization of a Data Science Automation Tool Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

These contributions, written by the foremost international researchers and practitioners of Genetic Programming (GP), explore the synergy between theoretical and empirical results on real-world problems, producing a comprehensive view of the state of the art in GP. Topics in this volume include: exploiting subprograms in genetic programming, schema frequencies in GP, Accessible AI, GP for Big Data, lexicase selection, symbolic regression techniques, co-evolution of GP and LCS, and applying ecological principles to GP. It also covers several chapters on best practices and lessons learned from hands-on experience. Readers will discover large-scale, real-world applications of GP to a variety of problem domains via in-depth presentations of the latest and most significant results.

This edited research monograph brings together contributions from computer scientists, biologists, and engineers who are engaged with the study of evolution and how it may be applied to solve real-world problems. It also serves as a Festschrift dedicated to Erik D. Goodman, the founding director of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, a pioneering NSF Science and Technology Center headquartered at Michigan State University. The contributing authors are leading experts associated with the center, and they serve in top research and industrial establishments across the US and worldwide.  Part I summarizes the history of the BEACON Center, with refreshingly personal chapters that describe Erik's working and leadership style, and others that discuss the development and successes of the center in the context of research funding, projects, and careers. The chapters in Part II deal with the evolution of genomes and evolvability. The contributionsin Part III discuss the evolution of behavior and intelligence. Those in Part IV concentrate on the evolution of communities and collective dynamics. The chapters in Part V discuss selected evolutionary computing applications in domains such as arts and science, automated program repair, cybersecurity, mechatronics, and genomic prediction. Part VI deals with evolution in the classroom, using creativity in research, and responsible conduct in research training. The book concludes with a special chapter from Erik Goodman, a short biography that concentrates on his personal positive influences and experiences throughout his long career in academia and industry.

This edited research monograph brings together contributions from computer scientists, biologists, and engineers who are engaged with the study of evolution and how it may be applied to solve real-world problems. It also serves as a Festschrift dedicated to Erik D. Goodman, the founding director of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, a pioneering NSF Science and Technology Center headquartered at Michigan State University. The contributing authors are leading experts associated with the center, and they serve in top research and industrial establishments across the US and worldwide.  Part I summarizes the history of the BEACON Center, with refreshingly personal chapters that describe Erik's working and leadership style, and others that discuss the development and successes of the center in the context of research funding, projects, and careers. The chapters in Part II deal with the evolution of genomes and evolvability. The contributionsin Part III discuss the evolution of behavior and intelligence. Those in Part IV concentrate on the evolution of communities and collective dynamics. The chapters in Part V discuss selected evolutionary computing applications in domains such as arts and science, automated program repair, cybersecurity, mechatronics, and genomic prediction. Part VI deals with evolution in the classroom, using creativity in research, and responsible conduct in research training. The book concludes with a special chapter from Erik Goodman, a short biography that concentrates on his personal positive influences and experiences throughout his long career in academia and industry.