Abstract
According to the literature that deals with the difficulty of functions with respect to genetic algorithms (GA), the so-called GA-hard functions are usually hard for other methods. In this paper, we firstly show that a gradient easy function can be fully deceptive, and thus hard for a GA to optimize while being unimodal. More generally, we show that the global search method introduced by (Das and Whitley 1991) to optimize GA-easy functions can be simply adapted to solve GA-hard functions. The resulting algorithm, called GSC1, generates a set of binary strings and outputs the string that wins the first order schemas competitions as well as its binary complement. According to the theory of deceptiveness in GAs, this method solves GA-easy and GA-hard problems efficiently, as shown effectively in the reported experiments. This method is however only well suited for these functions, and does not deal with partially deceptive functions. It is then shown how it could be combined with a GA.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cobb H.G. and Grefenstette J.J. (1993), Genetic algorithms for tracking changing environments, Proceedings of the Fith International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1993, S. Forrest (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 523–530.
Das R. and Whitley D. (1991), The only challenging problems are deceptive: global search by solving order-1 hyperplane, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1991, R.K. Belew and L.B. Booker (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 166–173.
Davidor Y. (1990), Epistasis variance: a viewpoint on GA-hardness, Proceedings of the first Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1990, G.J.E. Rawlins (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 23–35.
Davidor Y. and Ben-Kiki O. (1992), The interplay among the genetic algorithm operators: information theory tools used in a holistic way, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 1992, R. Manner and B. Manderick (Eds), Elsevier, pp 75–84.
De Jong K. (1992), Are genetic algorithms function optimizers?, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 1992, R. Manner and B. Manderick (Eds), Elsevier, pp 3–13.
De Jong K., Spears W.M. and Gordon D.F. (1994), Using Markov chains to analyze GAFOs, Proceedings of the third Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1994.
Eshelman L.J. and Schaffer J.D. (1992), Real-coded genetic algorithms and interval schemata, Proceedings of the second Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1992.
Goldberg D.E. (1987), Simple genetic algorithms and the minimal deceptive problem, Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing, L. Davis (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 74–88.
Goldberg D.E. (1989). Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Machine Learning: Addison Wesley.
Goldberg D.E., Deb K. and Korb B. (1991), Don't worry, be messy, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1991, R.K. Belew and L.B. Booker (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 24–30.
Grefenstette J.J. (1992), Deception considered harmful, Foundations of Genetic Algorithms 2, 1992.
Hart W.E. and Belew R.K. (1991), Optimizing an arbitrary function is hard for the genetic algorithm, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1991, R.K. Belew and L.B. Booker (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 190–195.
Holland J.H. (1975). Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Jones T. and Forrest S. (1995), Fitness distance correlation as a measure of problem difficulty for genetic algorithms, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1995, L.J. Eshelman (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 184–192.
Manela M. and Campbell J.A. (1992), Harmonic analysis, epistasis and genetic algorithms, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 1992, R. Manner and B. Manderick (Eds), Elsevier, pp 57–64.
Mitchell M., Forrest S. and Holland J.H. (1991), The royal road for genetic algorithms: fitness landscapes and GA performance, Proceedings of the first European Conference on Artificial Life 1991, F.J. Varela and P. Bourgine (Eds), MIT press/Bradford Books, pp 245–254.
Mitchell M. and Holland H. (1993), When will a genetic algorithm outperform hill climbing?, Proceedings of the Fith International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1993, S. Forrest (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 647–647.
Muhlenbein H. (1992), How genetic algorithms really work I.Mutation and hillclimbing, Proceedings of the Second Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 1992, R. Manner and B. Manderick (Eds), Elsevier, pp 15–25.
Radcliffe N.J. and Surry P.D. (1994), Fitness variance of formae and performance prediction, Proceedings of the third Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1994.
Schaffer J.D., Eshelman L.J. and Offutt D. (1990), Spurious correlation and premature convergence in genetic algorithms, Proceedings of the first Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1990, G.J.E. Rawlins (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 102–112.
Spears W.M., De Jong K.A., Baeck T., Fogel D.B. and de Garis H. (1993), An overview of evolutionary computation, Proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning 1993, P. Brazdil (Ed.), Lecture notes in artificial intelligence 667, Springer-Verlag, pp 442–459.
Syswerda G. (1989), Uniform crossover in genetic algorithms, Proceedings of the third International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1989, J.D. Schaffer (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 2–10.
Venturini G. (1994), A GA fully deceptive function of order 3 which is also gradient-easy, published in French in the proceedings of Evolution Artificielle 94, Cépaduès Editions.
Venturini G. (1995), GA consistently deceptive functions are not challenging problems (extended version, unpublished).
Whitley D. (1989), The genitor algorithm and selective pressure: why rank-based allocation of reproductive trials is best, Proceedings of the third International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1989, J.D. Schaffer (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 116–124.
Whitley D. (1990), Fundamental principles of deception in genetic search, Proceedings of the first Workshop on Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, 1990, G.J.E. Rawlins (Ed), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 221–241.
Wilson S.W. (1991), GA-easy does not imply steepest-ascent optimizable, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1991, R.K. Belew and L.B. Booker (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann, pp 85–89.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Venturini, G. (1996). Towards a genetic theory of easy and hard functions. In: Alliot, JM., Lutton, E., Ronald, E., Schoenauer, M., Snyers, D. (eds) Artificial Evolution. AE 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1063. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61108-8_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61108-8_30
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61108-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49948-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive