
Genetic Algorithms Digest   Thursday, May 6, 1993   Volume 7 : Issue 11

 - Send submissions to GA-List@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL
 - Send administrative requests to GA-List-Request@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL
 - anonymous ftp archive: FTP.AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL (Info in /pub/galist/FTP)

Today's Topics:
	- SAB94 Call For Papers
	- Re: PPSN-94 and Evolutionary Computation '94
	- Request For Information on GA's and Route Planning
	- Core War - FTP request
	- Question on Generalization Capabilities of GAs
	- Papers announcement - Marco Dorigo
	- GA book and software on Programming parallel GAs
	- looking for address of Jeff Davitz

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****************************************************************************

CALENDAR OF GA-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with GA-List issue reference)

ECAL-93, 2nd European Conference on A-Life, Brussels (v6n31)    May 24-26, 93
CSCS93, 9th Int Conf on control systems & CS, Romania (v7n3)    May 24-27, 93
ANN93, IEE Intl Conf on Artificial Neural Nets, Brighton        May 25-27, 93
ICGA-93, Fifth Intl. Conf. on GAs, Urbana-Champaign (v6n29)     Jul 17-22, 93
COLT93, ACM Conf on Computational Learning Theory, UCSC (v6n34) Jul 26-28, 93
Machine Learning & Knowledge Acq. Workshop (IJCAI), France (v7n1)  Aug 29, 93
IEE/IEEE Workshop on Nat Alg in Signal Processing, Essex (v7n5) Nov 15-16, 93
EP94 3rd Ann Conf on Evolutionary Programming, San Diego (v7n7) Feb 24-25, 94
The IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation, Orlando(v7n10) Jun 26-30, 94
SAB94 3rd Intl Conf on Sim of Adaptive Behavior, Brighton(v7n11) Aug 8-12, 94
PPSN-94 Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Israel (v7n9)      Oct 9-14, 94

(Send announcements of other activities to GA-List@aic.nrl.navy.mil)

****************************************************************************
------------------------------

From wilson@smith.rowland.org  Wed May  5 17:12:22 1993
Date: Wed, 05 May 93 17:12:53 EDT
Subject: SAB94 Call For Papers

                 Conference Announcement and Call For Papers

                         FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS

    Third International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB94)

                     Brighton, UK, August 8-12, 1994

        The object of the conference is to bring together researchers in
        ethology, psychology, ecology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence,
        robotics, and related fields so as to further our understanding of
        the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow animals and,
        potentially, robots to adapt and survive in uncertain environments.

        The conference will focus particularly on well-defined models,
        computer simulations, and built robots in order to help characterize
        and compare various organizational principles or architectures
        capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real or artificial animals.

        Contributions treating any of the following topics from the
        perspective of adaptive behavior will receive special emphasis.

   Individual and collective behavior   Autonomous robots
   Neural correlates of behavior        Hierarchical and parallel organizations
   Perception and motor control         Emergent structures and behaviors
   Motivation and emotion               Problem solving and planning
   Action selection and behavioral      Goal directed behavior
    sequences                           Neural networks and evolutionary
   Ontogeny, learning and evolution      computation
   Internal world models                Characterization of environments
    and cognitive processes             Applied adaptive behavior


       Authors should make every effort to suggest implications of their
       work for both natural and artificial animals.  Papers which do not
       deal explicitly with adaptive behavior will be rejected.

Submission Instructions

  Authors are requested to send five copies (hard copy only) of a full paper
  to the Program Chair (Dave Cliff). Papers should not exceed 10 pages
  (excluding the title page), with 1 inch margins all around, and no smaller
  than 10 pt (12 pitch) type (Times Roman preferred).
  Each paper must include a title page containing the following: (1) Full
  names, postal addresses, phone numbers, email addresses (if available),
  and fax numbers for each author, (2) A 100-200 word abstract, (3) The
  topic area(s) in which the paper could be reviewed (see list above).
  Camera ready versions of the papers, in two-column format,  will be
  required after acceptance.  Computer, video, and robotic demonstrations
  are also invited.  Please contact Phil Husbands to make arrangements for
  demonstrations.  Other program proposals will also be considered.

Conference committee

        Conference Chair

          Philip HUSBANDS
          School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
          University of Sussex
          Brighton BN1 9QN
          UK
          e-mail: philh@cogs.susx.ac.uk

          Jean-Arcady MEYER
          Groupe de Bioinformatique
          URA686.Ecole Normale Superieure
          46 rue d'Ulm
          75230 Paris Cedex 05
          France
          e-mail: meyer@wotan.ens.fr

          Stewart WILSON
          The Rowland Institute for Science
          100 Cambridge Parkway
          Cambridge, MA  02142
          USA
          e-mail: wilson@smith.rowland.org

        Program Chair

          David CLIFF
          School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
          University of Sussex
          Brighton BN1 9QN
          UK
          e-mail: davec@cogs.susx.ac.uk

        Financial Chair:   P. Husbands, H. Roitblat

        Local Arrangements: I. Harvey, P. Husbands

Program Committee

  M. Arbib, USA           R. Arkin, USA            R. Beer, USA       
  A. Berthoz, France      L. Booker, USA           R. Brooks, USA   
  P. Colgan, Canada       T. Collett, UK           H. Cruse, Germany   
  J. Daugman, UK          J. Delius, Germany       A. Dickinson, UK   
  J. Ferber, France       N. Franceschini, France  S. Goss, Belgium  
  J. Halperin, Canada     I. Harvey, UK            I. Horswill, USA   
  A. Houston, UK          L. Kaelbling, USA        H. Klopf, USA  
  L-J. Lin, USA           P. Maes, USA             M. Mataric, USA   
  D. McFarland, UK        G. Miller, UK            R. Pfeifer, Switzerland
  H. Roitblat, USA        J. Slotine, USA          O. Sporns, USA  
  J. Staddon, USA         F. Toates, UK            P. Todd, USA  
  S. Tsuji, Japan         W. Uttal, USA            D. Waltz, USA.

Official Language: English
Publisher: MIT Press/Bradford Books

Important Dates
===============

         JAN 5, 1994:    Submission deadline
         MAR 10:         Notification of acceptance or rejection
         APR 10:         Camera ready revised versions due
         MAY 1:          Early registration deadline
         JUL 8:          Regular registration deadline
         AUG 8-12:       Conference dates

General queries to: sab94@cogs.susx.ac.uk

------------------------------

From: zbyszek@mosaic.uncc.edu (Zbigniew Michalewicz)
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 07:38:29 EDT
Subject: Re: PPSN-94 and Evolutionary Computation '94

In v7n9 Yuval Davidor writes:

>  I am happy to announce the details of the next PPSN conference which
>  will be held in Israel between 9-14 October 1994.

>  I would like to point out the danger in defusing the central 
>  role of the ICGA and PPSN conferences.  Recently a symposium on evolutionary
>  computation was announced to be held in Orlando, Florida, between June 25 -
>  July 1, 1994, dates which are very close to the traditional dates of the PPSN
>  conferences.  Of course there is no restriction on individuals wishing to
>  organize a conference on evolutionary computation, but it is counter
>  productive for the community as a whole to have too many competing channels
>  for international exchange of ideas and publications.  It was agreed by the
>  American and European communities that in alternate years an ICGA and a PPSN
>  international conference will be held, and that these are the official
>  international conferences of the community. I hope that members of the
>  community will demonstrate their support of these two conferences by giving 
>  priority for submission, and  attending the ICGA and PPSN conferences.

Let me provide a few facts and recommendations:
 
(1) The idea for the World Congress on Computational Intelligence was
proposed by the IEEE Neural Networks Council and not by any single individual.
The Congress has been planned for at least two years and the place and
dates for the Congress were set well in advance of the recent announcement
for the three conferences. I accepted the offer to chair one of these
conferences (Evolutionary Computation) just few months ago (in October '92).

(2) The World Congress is in June '94 and the PPSN is in October '94.
More than three months and a continent apart do not constitute any major
conflict.

(3) Other colleagues who have chaired previous ICGA and PPSN conferences
support the idea of the World Congress and accepted positions chairing the
program committee.  We further expect participation from those who have 
chaired or been otherwise involved with the previous EP conferences.
 
(4) I believe that the idea of such World Congress is simply great. We
expect at least 3500 participants, with 40 invited speakers, 18 tutorials,
many exhibitions, one registration fee for all three conferences,
and so forth.  The place and timing are more than attractive.
I am sure it will provide an excellent opportunity for the area of
evolutionary computation to receive greater attention from a wider
audience, with significant potential for cross-fertilization between 
the neural network and fuzzy communities. 

(5) It is the responsibility of EC community to create opportunities 
to attract a wider technical audience to our ideas. I believe that
the WCCI is a fine example of this kind of opportunity and I believe 
it will be highly successful. There will continue to be a place for 
smaller conferences and workshops for those who who push the research 
front and need opportunities to meet and discuss. But there is a place for
the large conference too, and, in the case of the WCCI, the 
cross-fertilization with the NN and Fuzzy communities is a real plus.
 
(6) The preliminary call for papers for the conference on EC at the
World Congress in Orlando appeared in the GA Digest on Dec. 22, 1992 (v6n40). 
I've heard no criticisms regarding the conference until the above posting
(which may have been itself "counter productive for the community 
as a whole"). I think that it would be more productive to direct any 
further  concerns to the IEEE Neural Network Council, and not to continue
such discussion here.

Contact people: 

(a) President, NNC Executive Committee:
Russell C. Eberhart                    phone: 919-541-7123
Research Triangle Institute              fax: 919-541-6965
P. O. Box 12194                        email: rce@rti.rti.org
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA

(b) Director General of the World Congress:
Charles J. Robinson
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences    phone: 412-624-8940
117D Pensilvania Hall                             fax: 412-624-8504
The University of Pittsburgh                   e-mail: c.robinson@ieee.org
Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA

I hope these remarks would clarify the issue.

Zbigniew Michalewicz

Mail: Department of Computer Science      E-mail: zbyszek@mosaic.uncc.edu  
      University of North Carolina        Phone:  (704) 547-4873          
      Charlotte, NC 28223                 Fax:    (704) 547-2352         

------------------------------

From: pellazar@lava.nrtc.northrop.com
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 9:49:03 PDT
Subject: Request For Information on GA's and Route Planning

	Has anyone applied GAs or other evolutionary strategies to
	the problem of multi-agent route planning (optimizing)?

	If so, could you please send me any technical information
	on your work?

	I am particularly interested in approaches to designing
	structure representation, and a fitness function for
	dealing with timing constraints (for agent synchronizing),
	spatial constraints (to prevent agent collisions with other
	agents or with the environment), and agent resource constraints
	(e.g., fuel availability).

	If any one out there has any kind of information to share
	on this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.

	Thanks, mpellazar@lava.nrtc.northrop.com

------------------------------

From: "Johannes Vorster"  <JVORSTER@dos-lan.cs.up.ac.za>
Date:         19 Apr 93 20:37:52 WET-2
Subject:      Core War - FTP request

This concerns the March 1993 edition of DR. Dobb's Journal, article
Adaptation, Emergent Computation, and Artificial Life", p 139.
Does anybody have a FTP - address for Thomas Ray's program that uses
a GA to optimize Self-replicating programs. These programs compete
against each other in a virtual world.

This is an interesting problem, since there is no evaluation
function. Instead, a member of the population can get killed
leteraly), and is then replaced by a newly generated child.

Has anyone played with this tipe of system? How do one pick the
initial population? Since a random selection of the genes will not
yeald a active (living) member, and therefore crossing them will
only yeald random children without any improvement (other than
random). Therefore it could take (in my opinion) millions of
generations to generate a reproductive program.

  /
/|        \  |
 |OHANNES   \|ORSTER
/    _______________
  \/ SCRF-AC SpyAce

------------------------------

From: Masud <CADER@american.edu>
Date:         Tue, 13 Apr 93 10:27:22 EDT
Subject: Question on Generalization Capabilities of GAs

I would like to enquire as to the research carried out as far as the
Generalization capabilities of GAs are concerned.  I am interested in
the design of such generalizing GAs, especially the specification of
the objective function for certain common problems.

Thank you.

------------------------------

From: dorigo@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (Marco Dorigo)
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 93 17:21:45 PDT
Subject: Papers announcement - Marco Dorigo

A postscript copy of the following papers can be obtained 
by anonymous ftp at icsi.berkeley.edu. (Remember to set 
transmission to BINARY)

====================
Bertoni A. & M. Dorigo (1993). Implicit Parallelism in 
Genetic Algorithms. Technical Report No. 93-001, 
International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA. TO 
APPEAR ON Artificial Intelligence Journal.

This paper is related to Holland's result on implicit 
parallelism. Roughly speaking, Holland showed a lower bound 
of the order of n^3/(c1*SQRT(l)) to the number of schemata 
usefully processed by the genetic algorithm in a population 
of n=c1*2^l binary strings, with c1 a small integer. We 
analyze the case of population of n = 2^(beta*l) binary 
strings where beta is a positive parameter (Holland's 
result is related to the case beta=1). In the main result, 
for all beta>0 we state a lower bound on the expected 
number of processed schemata; moreover, we prove that this 
bound is tight up to a constant for all beta31 and, in this 
case, we strengthen in probability the previous result.

Get it as pub/techreports/tr-93-001.ps.Z; then uncompress.
===================

Colombetti M. & M. Dorigo (1992). Robot Shaping: Developing 
Situated Agents through Learning. Technical Report No. 92-
040, International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, 
CA. (Revised  version submitted to Artificial Intelligence 
Journal ).

Learning plays a vital role in the development of situated 
agents. In this paper, we explore the use of reinforcement 
learning to "shape" a robot to perform a predefined target 
behavior. We connect both simulated and real robots to 
ALECSYS, a parallel implementation of a learning classifier 
system with an extended genetic algorithm. After 
classifying different kinds of Animat-like behaviors, we 
explore the effects on learning of different types of 
agent's architecture (monolithic, flat and hierarchical) 
and of training strategies. In particular, hierarchical 
architecture requires the agent to learn how to coordinate 
basic learned responses. We show that the best results are 
achieved when both the agent's architecture and the 
training strategy match the structure of the behavior 
pattern to be learned. We report the results of a number of
experiments carried out both in simulated and in real 
environments, and show that the results of simulations 
carry smoothly to real robots. While most of our 
experiments deal with simple reactive behavior, in one of 
them we demonstrate the use of a simple and general memory 
mechanism. As a whole, our experimental activity 
demonstrates that classifier systems with genetic 
algorithms can be practically employed to develop 
autonomous agents.

Get it as pub/techreports/tr-92-040-revised.ps.Z; then 
uncompress.
===================

Dorigo M. (1993). Genetic and Non Genetic Operators in 
Alecsys. Technical Report No. 92-075, International 
Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA. Evolutionary 
Computation Journal, 1, 2.

It is well known that standard learning classifier systems, 
when applied to many different domains, exhibit a number of 
problems: payoff oscillation, difficult to regulate 
interplay between the reward system and the background 
genetic algorithm (GA), rule chains instability, default 
hierarchies instability, are only a few. ALECSYS is a 
parallel version of a standard learning classifier system 
(CS), and as such suffers of these same problems. In this 
paper we propose some innovative solutions to some of these 
problems. We introduce the following original features. 
Mutespec, a new genetic operator used to specialize 
potentially useful classifiers. Energy, a quantity 
introduced to measure global convergence in order to apply 
the genetic algorithm only when the system is close to a 
steady state. Dynamical adjustment of the classifiers set
cardinality, in order to speed up the performance phase of 
the algorithm. We present simulation results of experiments 
run in a simulated two-dimensional world in which a simple 
agent learns to follow a light source.

Get it as pub/techreports/tr-92-075.ps.Z; then uncompress.
===================

Marco Dorigo, Ph.D.
International Computer Science Institute
1947 Center Street
Berkeley, California 94704-1105
U.S.A.
Tel. (510) 642-4274 ext.189
     (510) 643-9153 no ext.
FAX  (510) 643-7684
Home (510) 841-2613
e-mail dorigo@icsi.berkeley.edu

------------------------------

From: Jose Luiz Ribeiro Filho <J.RibeiroFilho@cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 04 May 93 11:30:38 +0100
Subject: GA book and software on Programming parallel GAs

			ANNOUNCEMENT

The European ESPRIT III project PAPAGENA is pleased to announce
the availability  of the following book and software.

"Parallel Genetic Algorithms: Theory and Applications" was recently
published by IOS press. The book,  edited by Joachim Stender,
provides an overview of the theoretical, as well as practical, 
aspects involved in the study and implementation of parallel genetic 
algorithms (PGAs).

The book comes with a floppy disk version of GAME (Gentic Algorithm 
Manipulation Environment). The disk contains the C++ source code
for the sequential version the the GAME Virtual Machine. Also two
simple demonstration  examples are included (an analytical 
function and a TSP) to illustrate the use of the VM. 
Code is provided for both UNIX and MS-DOS.

GAME provides a general purpose toolkit for the programming and simulation of 
a wide range of GA and PGA algorithms and applications.  The GAME environment 
is being upgraded to include graphical monitoring tools, and to allow for 
abitrary levels of addressing for GA manipulation (i.e., populations can be 
broken down into arbitrary substructutes beyond individuals, chromosomes, and 
genes, with biological operators acting at all levels).  
New releases will be announced later in the year.
 
The table of contents for "PGAs: Theory and Applications" is as follows:

1. Introduction and Historical Background
  J. Stender and C.J.A. Chisholm

2. Foundations and Theoretical Issues
  M. Dorigo and V. Maniezzo
	Parallel Genetic Algorithms: Introduction and Overview 
	of Current Research

3. Implementation
  I. East, D. Macfarlane
	Implementation in Occam of Parallel Genetic Algorithms on 
	Transputer Networks

4. GAME - a Genetic Algorithms Manpulation Environment
  J. Ribeiro Filho et al.
	Genetic Algorithm Programming Environments
  J. Kingdon et al.
	The GAME Programming Environment Architecture
  L. Dekker and J. Ribeiro Filho
	The GAME Virtual Machine Architecture
  J. Ribeiro Filho
	GAME's Library Structure

5. Appliacations
  J. Stender  et al.
	Priciple-Based Engineering and Economic Modeling
  S. Schulze-Kremer.
	Genetic Algorithms for Protein Tertiary Structure Prediction
  B. Kroger et al.
	Parallel Genetic Packing on Transputers
  J. Paul et al. 
	Applications of Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms in the
	Diagnosis of Cancer, Anorexia Nervosa and AIDS.

Jose' Luiz Ribeiro Filho      |   JANET:zeluiz@uk.ac.ucl.cs
Department of Computer Science|  BITNET:zeluiz@cs.ucl.ac.uk
University College London     |Internet:zeluiz%cs.ucl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Gower Street                  | ARPANet:zeluiz@cs.ucl.ac.uk
London WC1E 6BT               |    UUCP:...!mcvax!ukc!ucl-cs!zeluiz
England                       |     tel: +44 (071) 387 7050 x 3701
                                    fax: +44 (071) 387 1397

------------------------------

From: Todd Huffman <huffman@yoko.STAT.ORST.EDU>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 15:20:13 PDT
Subject: looking for address of Jeff Davitz

I would like to find the current address of Jeff Davitz, who used to
work at Los Alimos -- Center for Nonlinear Studies, also at UC Santa Cruz
math department.

If you know Jeff and where he is please send me his address or send him
mine.  THANKS.

Todd Huffman
huffman@stat.orst.edu
OSU Dept. of Statistics
Corvallis, OR  97331

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End of Genetic Algorithms Digest
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