2,430 research outputs found
Analysing Symbolic Regression Benchmarks under a Meta-Learning Approach
The definition of a concise and effective testbed for Genetic Programming
(GP) is a recurrent matter in the research community. This paper takes a new
step in this direction, proposing a different approach to measure the quality
of the symbolic regression benchmarks quantitatively. The proposed approach is
based on meta-learning and uses a set of dataset meta-features---such as the
number of examples or output skewness---to describe the datasets. Our idea is
to correlate these meta-features with the errors obtained by a GP method. These
meta-features define a space of benchmarks that should, ideally, have datasets
(points) covering different regions of the space. An initial analysis of 63
datasets showed that current benchmarks are concentrated in a small region of
this benchmark space. We also found out that number of instances and output
skewness are the most relevant meta-features to GP output error. Both
conclusions can help define which datasets should compose an effective testbed
for symbolic regression methods.Comment: 8 pages, 3 Figures, Proceedings of Genetic and Evolutionary
Computation Conference Companion, Kyoto, Japa
A Study of Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming with Linear Scaling
Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics, specialization in Data ScienceMachine Learning (ML) is a scientific discipline that endeavors to enable computers
to learn without the need for explicit programming. Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs),
a subset of ML algorithms, mimic Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by using natural
selection mechanisms (i.e., survival of the fittest) to evolve a group of individuals
(i.e., possible solutions to a given problem). Genetic Programming (GP) is the most
recent type of EA and it evolves computer programs (i.e., individuals) to map a set of
input data into known expected outputs. Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming
(GSGP) extends this concept by allowing individuals to evolve and vary in the semantic
space, where the output vectors are located, rather than being constrained by syntaxbased
structures. Linear Scaling (LS) is a method that was introduced to facilitate the
task of GP of searching for the best function matching a set of known data. GSGP
and LS have both, independently, shown the ability to outperform standard GP for
symbolic regression. GSGP uses Geometric Semantic Operators (GSOs), different
from the standard ones, without altering the fitness, while LS modifies the fitness
without altering the genetic operators. To the best of our knowledge, there has been
no prior utilization of the combined methodology of GSGP and LS for classification
problems. Furthermore, despite the fact that they have been used together in one
practical regression application, a methodological evaluation of the advantages and
disadvantages of integrating these methods for regression or classification problems
has never been performed. In this dissertation, a study of a system that integrates both
GSGP and LS (GSGP-LS) is presented. The performance of the proposed method, GSGPLS,
was tested on six hand-tailored regression benchmarks, nine real-life regression
problems and three real-life classification problems. The obtained results indicate that
GSGP-LS outperforms GSGP in the majority of the cases, confirming the expected
benefit of this integration. However, for some particularly hard regression datasets,
GSGP-LS overfits training data, being outperformed by GSGP on unseen data. This
contradicts the idea that LS is always beneficial for GP, warning the practitioners about
its risk of overfitting in some specific cases.A Aprendizagem Automática (AA) é uma disciplina científica que se esforça por
permitir que os computadores aprendam sem a necessidade de programação explícita.
Algoritmos Evolutivos (AE),um subconjunto de algoritmos de ML, mimetizam a Teoria
da Evolução de Darwin, usando a seleção natural e mecanismos de "sobrevivência dos
mais aptos"para evoluir um grupo de indivíduos (ou seja, possíveis soluções para
um problema dado). A Programação Genética (PG) é um processo algorítmico que
evolui programas de computador (ou indivíduos) para ligar características de entrada e
saída. A Programação Genética em Geometria Semântica (PGGS) estende esse conceito
permitindo que os indivíduos evoluam e variem no espaço semântico, onde os vetores
de saída estão localizados, em vez de serem limitados por estruturas baseadas em
sintaxe. A Escala Linear (EL) é um método introduzido para facilitar a tarefa da PG de
procurar a melhor função que corresponda a um conjunto de dados conhecidos. Tanto
a PGGS quanto a EL demonstraram, independentemente, a capacidade de superar a
PG padrão para regressão simbólica. A PGGS usa Operadores Semânticos Geométricos
(OSGs), diferentes dos padrões, sem alterar o fitness, enquanto a EL modifica o fitness
sem alterar os operadores genéticos. Até onde sabemos, não houve utilização prévia
da metodologia combinada de PGGS e EL para problemas de classificação. Além disso,
apesar de terem sido usados juntos em uma aplicação prática de regressão, nunca foi
realizada uma avaliação metodológica das vantagens e desvantagens da integração
desses métodos para problemas de regressão ou classificação. Nesta dissertação, é
apresentado um estudo de um sistema que integra tanto a PGGS quanto a EL (PGGSEL).
O desempenho do método proposto, PGGS-EL, foi testado em seis benchmarks de
regressão personalizados, nove problemas de regressão da vida real e três problemas
de classificação da vida real. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o PGGS-EL supera
o PGGS na maioria dos casos, confirmando o benefício esperado desta integração.
No entanto, para alguns conjuntos de dados de regressão particularmente difíceis, o
PGGS-EL faz overfit aos dados de treino, obtendo piores resultados em comparação com
PGGS em dados não vistos. Isso contradiz a ideia de que a EL é sempre benéfica para
a PG, alertando os praticantes sobre o risco de overfitting em alguns casos específicos
A Study of Dynamic Populations in Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming
Farinati, D., Bakurov, I., & Vanneschi, L. (2023). A Study of Dynamic Populations in Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming. Information Sciences, 648(November), 1-21. [119513]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2023.119513 --- This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project - UIDB/04152/2020 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS.Allowing the population size to variate during the evolution can bring advantages to evolutionary algorithms (EAs), retaining computational effort during the evolution process. Dynamic populations use computational resources wisely in several types of EAs, including genetic programming. However, so far, a thorough study on the use of dynamic populations in Geometric Semantic Genetic Programming (GSGP) is missing. Still, GSGP is a resource-greedy algorithm, and the use of dynamic populations seems appropriate. This paper adapts algorithms to GSGP to manage dynamic populations that were successful for other types of EAs and introduces two novel algorithms. The novel algorithms exploit the concept of semantic neighbourhood. These methods are assessed and compared through a set of eight regression problems. The results indicate that the algorithms outperform standard GSGP, confirming the suitability of dynamic populations for GSGP. Interestingly, the novel algorithms that use semantic neighbourhood to manage variation in population size are particularly effective in generating robust models even for the most difficult of the studied test problems.publishersversionpublishe
Where are we now? A large benchmark study of recent symbolic regression methods
In this paper we provide a broad benchmarking of recent genetic programming
approaches to symbolic regression in the context of state of the art machine
learning approaches. We use a set of nearly 100 regression benchmark problems
culled from open source repositories across the web. We conduct a rigorous
benchmarking of four recent symbolic regression approaches as well as nine
machine learning approaches from scikit-learn. The results suggest that
symbolic regression performs strongly compared to state-of-the-art gradient
boosting algorithms, although in terms of running times is among the slowest of
the available methodologies. We discuss the results in detail and point to
future research directions that may allow symbolic regression to gain wider
adoption in the machine learning community.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. GECCO 201
A Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB) Pipeline Survey: Taxonomy, Evaluation, and Ranking
This paper provides a taxonomical identification survey of classes in discrete optimization challenges that can be found in the literature including a proposed pipeline for benchmarking, inspired by previous computational optimization competitions. Thereby, a Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB) perspective is presented for the BB-DOB@GECCO Workshop. It is motivated why certain classes together with their properties (like deception and separability or toy problem label) should be included in the perspective. Moreover, guidelines on how to select significant instances within these classes, the design of experiments setup, performance measures, and presentation methods and formats are discussed.authorsversio
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