Research in Evolutionary Computation

In computer science, evolutionary computation is a subfield of artificial intelligence (more particularly computational intelligence) that involves combinatorial optimization problems. Evolutionary Computing is the collective name for a range of problem-solving techniques based on principles of biological evolution, such as natural selection and genetic inheritance. These techniques are being increasingly widely applied to a variety of problems, ranging from practical applications in industry and commerce to leading-edge scientific research Evolutionary techniques mostly involve metaheuristic optimization algorithms such as: evolutionary algorithms (comprising genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, evolution strategy and genetic programming) swarm intelligence (comprising ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization) and in a lesser extent also: Differential Evolution, Artificial Life, Cultural Algorithms, Harmony Search Algorithm, Artificial Immune Systems, Learning Classifier Systems and Learnable Evolution Model Evolutionary algorithms form a subset of evolutionary computation in that they implement the mechanisms inspired by biological evolution such as reproduction, mutation, recombination, natural selection and survival of the fittest. Candidate solutions to the optimization problem play the role of individuals in a population, and the cost function determines the environment within which the solutions "live". Evolution of the population then takes place after the repeated application of the above operators. In this process, there are two main forces that form the basis of evolutionary systems: Recombination and mutation create the necessary diversity and thereby facilitate novelty, while selection acts as a force increasing quality. The important elements of research in evolutionary computation, which have gained much attention in the recent years, are: 1)Discovery: Specifying optimization problems and analyzing algorithms. Which are important parameters; what should be optimized; what happens if new operators are implemented? 2)Comparison: Comparing the performance of competing search heuristics such as evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, and particle swarm optimization, etc. 3)Conjecture: It might be good to demonstrate performance, but it is better to explain performance. Understanding and further research, based on statistics and visualization techniques, play important roles. 4)Quality: Improving the robustness of the results obtained in optimization or simulation runs. Robustness includes insensitivity to exogenous factors that can affect the algorithms performance and minimization of the variability around the solutions obtained. Evolutionary computation practitioners: Kalyanmoy Deb, David E. Goldberg, John Henry Holland, John Koza, Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel, Xin Yao, Vasileios Petras , etc. Major conferences and workshops: The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) , IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN) , The Foundations of Genetic Algorithms workshop (FOGA), The Workshop on Ant Colony optimization and Swarm Intelligence (ANTS) and The EuroGP and Evo* workshops Journals: Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines and Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications
G.JEYAKUMAR Asst. Prof. CSE Department