An MDL approach to the climate segmentation problem

This paper proposes an information theory approach to estimate the number of changepoints and their locations in a climatic time series. A model is introduced that has an unknown number of changepoints and allows for series autocorrelations, periodic dynamics, and a mean shift at each changepoint time. An objective function gauging the number of changepoints and their locations, based on a minimum description length (MDL) information criterion, is derived. A genetic algorithm is then developed to optimize the objective function. The methods are applied in the analysis of a century of monthly temperatures from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS289 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Parallelisation of genetic algorithms for the 2-page crossing number problem

Genetic algorithms have been applied to solve the 2-page crossing number problem successfully, but since they work with one global population, the search time and space are limited. Parallelisation provides an attractive prospect to improve the efficiency and solution quality of genetic algorithms. This paper investigates the complexity of parallel genetic algorithms (PGAs) based on two evaluation measures: Computation-time to Communication-time and Population-size to Chromosomesize. Moreover, the paper unifies the framework of PGA models with the function PGA (subpopulation size; cluster size, migration period; topology), and explores the performance of PGAs for the 2-page crossing number problem

A distributed evolutionary algorithm with a superlinear speedup for solving the vehicle routing problem

In this paper we present a distributed evolutionary algorithm for solving the capacitated vehicle routing problem. Our algorithm consists of autonomous processes that create heterogeneous evolutionary environments, perform evolution on separate populations of chromosomes, and communicate asynchronously through occasional migrations of chromosomes. The paper also presents experiments where the algorithm has been tested on some benchmark problem instances. By measuring the effects of distribution on solution quality and on computing time, the experiments confirm that the algorithm achieves a superlinear speedup

Coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithms: Three implementations and their analysis

Although solutions to many problems can be found using direct analytical methods such as those calculus provides, many problems simply are too large or too difficult to solve using traditional techniques. Genetic algorithms provide an indirect approach to solving those problems. A genetic algorithm applies biological genetic procedures and principles to a randomly generated collection of potential solutions. The result is the evolution of new and better solutions. Coarse-Grained Parallel Genetic Algorithms extend the basic genetic algorithm by introducing genetic isolation and distribution of the problem domain. This thesis compares the capabilities of a serial genetic algorithm and three coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithms (a standard parallel algorithm, a non-uniform parallel algorithm and an adaptive parallel algorithm). The evaluation is done using an instance of the traveling salesman problem. It is shown that while the standard course-grained parallel algorithm provides more consistent results than the serial genetic algorithm, the adaptive distributed algorithm out-performs them both. To facilitate this analysis, an extensible object-oriented library for genetic algorithms, encompassing both serial and coarse-grained parallel genetic algorithms, was developed. The Java programming language was used throughout

Optimization of micropillar sequences for fluid flow sculpting

Inertial fluid flow deformation around pillars in a microchannel is a new method for controlling fluid flow. Sequences of pillars have been shown to produce a rich phase space with a wide variety of flow transformations. Previous work has successfully demonstrated manual design of pillar sequences to achieve desired transformations of the flow cross-section, with experimental validation. However, such a method is not ideal for seeking out complex sculpted shapes as the search space quickly becomes too large for efficient manual discovery. We explore fast, automated optimization methods to solve this problem. We formulate the inertial flow physics in microchannels with different micropillar configurations as a set of state transition matrix operations. These state transition matrices are constructed from experimentally validated streamtraces. This facilitates modeling the effect of a sequence of micropillars as nested matrix-matrix products, which have very efficient numerical implementations. With this new forward model, arbitrary micropillar sequences can be rapidly simulated with various inlet configurations, allowing optimization routines quick access to a large search space. We integrate this framework with the genetic algorithm and showcase its applicability by designing micropillar sequences for various useful transformations. We computationally discover micropillar sequences for complex transformations that are substantially shorter than manually designed sequences. We also determine sequences for novel transformations that were difficult to manually design. Finally, we experimentally validate these computational designs by fabricating devices and comparing predictions with the results from confocal microscopy

Alternative strategies for asynchronous migration-controlled schemes in parallel genetic algorithms

Migration of individuals allows a fruitful interaction between subpopulations in the island model, a well known distributed approach for evolutionary computing, where separate subpopulations evolve in parallel. This model is well suited for a distributed environment running a Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) scheme. Here, the same Genetic Algorithm (GA) is replicated in many processors and attempting better convergence, through an expected improvement on genetic diversity, selected individuals are exchanged periodically. For exchanging, an individual is selected from a source subpopulation and then exported towards a target subpopulation. Usually, the imported string is accepted on arrival and then inserted into the target subpopulation. Our earlier experiments on controlled migration showed an improvement on results when contrasted against those obtained by conventional migration approaches. This paper describes extended implementations of alternative strategies to oversee migration in asynchronous schemes for an island model and enlarges a previous work on three processors with a set of softer testing functions [9]. All of them try to decrease the risk of premature convergence. A first strategy attempts to prevent unbalanced propagation of genotypes by applying an acceptance threshold parameter to each incoming string. A second one permits independent evolution of subpopulations and acts only when a possible stagnation is detected. In such condition an attempt to evade falling towards a local optimum is done by inserting an expected dissimilar individual to improve genetic diversity. A third alternative strategy combines both previous mentioned strategies. The results presented are those obtained on the functions that showed to be more difficult for the island model using a replication of a simple GA. A description of the corresponding system architecture supporting the PGA implementation is described and results for the parallel distributed approach among 3, 6 and 12 processors is discussed.Eje: Procesamiento distribuido y paralelo. Tratamiento de señalesRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Automatic programming methodologies for electronic hardware fault monitoring

This paper presents three variants of Genetic Programming (GP) approaches for intelligent online performance monitoring of electronic circuits and systems. Reliability modeling of electronic circuits can be best performed by the Stressor - susceptibility interaction model. A circuit or a system is considered to be failed once the stressor has exceeded the susceptibility limits. For on-line prediction, validated stressor vectors may be obtained by direct measurements or sensors, which after pre-processing and standardization are fed into the GP models. Empirical results are compared with artificial neural networks trained using backpropagation algorithm and classification and regression trees. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the experiment results with the actual failure model values. The developed model reveals that GP could play an important role for future fault monitoring systems.This research was supported by the International Joint Research Grant of the IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment) foreign professor invitation program of the MIC (Ministry of Information and Communication), Korea

FFPopSim: An efficient forward simulation package for the evolution of large populations

The analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of a population with many polymorphic loci is challenging since a large number of possible genotypes needs to be tracked. In the absence of analytical solutions, forward computer simulations are an important tool in multi-locus population genetics. The run time of standard algorithms to simulate sexual populations increases as 8^L with the number L of loci, or with the square of the population size N. We have developed algorithms that allow to simulate large populations with a run-time that scales as 3^L. The algorithm is based on an analog of the Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT) and allows for arbitrary fitness functions (i.e. any epistasis) and genetic maps. The algorithm is implemented as a collection of C++ classes and a Python interface.Comment: available from: http://code.google.com/p/ffpopsi