Context based clearing procedure: A niching method for genetic algorithms

AbstractIn this paper we present CBC (context based clearing), a procedure for solving the niching problem. CBC is a clearing technique governed by the amount of heterogeneity in a subpopulation as measured by the standard deviation. CBC was tested using the M7 function, a massively multimodal deceptive optimization function typically used for testing the efficiency of finding global optima in a search space. The results are compared with a standard clearing procedure. Results show that CBC reaches global optima several generations earlier than in the standard clearing procedure. In this work the target was to test the effectiveness of context information in controlling clearing. A subpopulation includes a fixed number of candidates rather than a fixed radius. Each subpopulation is then cleared either totally or partially according to the heterogeneity of its candidates. This automatically regulates the radius size of the area cleared around the pivot of the subpopulation

Evolutionary Algorithms

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are population-based metaheuristics, originally inspired by aspects of natural evolution. Modern varieties incorporate a broad mixture of search mechanisms, and tend to blend inspiration from nature with pragmatic engineering concerns; however, all EAs essentially operate by maintaining a population of potential solutions and in some way artificially 'evolving' that population over time. Particularly well-known categories of EAs include genetic algorithms (GAs), Genetic Programming (GP), and Evolution Strategies (ES). EAs have proven very successful in practical applications, particularly those requiring solutions to combinatorial problems. EAs are highly flexible and can be configured to address any optimization task, without the requirements for reformulation and/or simplification that would be needed for other techniques. However, this flexibility goes hand in hand with a cost: the tailoring of an EA's configuration and parameters, so as to provide robust performance for a given class of tasks, is often a complex and time-consuming process. This tailoring process is one of the many ongoing research areas associated with EAs.Comment: To appear in R. Marti, P. Pardalos, and M. Resende, eds., Handbook of Heuristics, Springe

Fitness Proportionate Niching: Harnessing The Power Of Evolutionary Algorithms For Evolving Cooperative Populations And Dynamic Clustering

Evolutionary algorithms work on the notion of best fit will survive criteria. This makes evolving a cooperative and diverse population in a competing environment via evolutionary algorithms a challenging task. Analogies to species interactions in natural ecological systems have been used to develop methods for maintaining diversity in a population. One such area that mimics species interactions in natural systems is the use of niching. Niching methods extend the application of EAs to areas that seeks to embrace multiple solutions to a given problem. The conventional fitness sharing technique has limitations when the multimodal fitness landscape has unequal peaks. Higher peaks are strong population attractors. And this technique suffers from the curse of population size in attempting to discover all optimum points. The use of high population size makes the technique computationally complex, especially when there is a big jump in fitness values of the peaks. This work introduces a novel bio-inspired niching technique, termed Fitness Proportionate Niching (FPN), based on the analogy of finite resource model where individuals share the resource of a niche in proportion to their actual fitness. FPN makes the search algorithm unbiased to the variation in fitness values of the peaks and hence mitigates the drawbacks of conventional fitness sharing. FPN extends the global search ability of Genetic Algorithms (GAs) for evolving hierarchical cooperation in genetics-based machine learning and dynamic clustering. To this end, this work introduces FPN based resource sharing which leads to the formation of a viable default hierarchy in classifiers for the first time. It results in the co-evolution of default and exception rules, which lead to a robust and concise model description. The work also explores the feasibility and success of FPN for dynamic clustering. Unlike most other clustering techniques, FPN based clustering does not require any a priori information on the distribution of the data

Dynamic niching in evolution strategies with covariance matrix adaptation

Abstract- Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have the tendency to converge quickly into a single solution in the search space. However, many complex search problems require the identification and maintenance of multiple solutions. Niching methods are the extension of EAs to address this issue. In our study we propose an Evolution Strategies (ES) niching method, based on the covariance matrix adaptation (CMA) mechanism. We analyze our algorithm, introduce an experimental setup, and compare its performance with a previous ES niching method, known as the ES dynamic niching algorithm. In our comparison we introduce for the first time a new analytical tool for niching analysis, and in particular the early niching formation process. Based on successful data fit, we propose the well-known logistic model to describe our experimental results.

Stochastic and deterministic algorithms for continuous black-box optimization

Continuous optimization is never easy: the exact solution is always a luxury demand and the theory of it is not always analytical and elegant. Continuous optimization, in practice, is essentially about the efficiency: how to obtain the solution with same quality using as minimal resources (e.g., CPU time or memory usage) as possible? In this thesis, the number of function evaluations is considered as the most important resource to save. To achieve this goal, various efforts have been implemented and applied successfully. One research stream focuses on the so-called stochastic variation (mutation) operator, which conducts an (local) exploration of the search space. The efficiency of those operator has been investigated closely, which shows a good stochastic variation should be able to generate a good coverage of the local neighbourhood around the current search solution. This thesis contributes on this issue by formulating a novel stochastic variation that yields good space coverage. Algorithms and the Foundations of Software technolog