Interactive Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Based Cooperative Problem-Solving

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Interactive Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Based Cooperative Problem-SolvingJ.Schoof,J.AlbertLehrstuhl f¨u r Informatik II,Universit¨a t W¨u rzburg,D-97074W¨u rzburgrmatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/IntroductionThe integration of human knowledge or intuition into evolutionary optimization processes has already been used in some areas like pattern design or genetic modeling in biology(see[GB95]).Most of these implementations require the user to evaluate or select individuals.In this paper we describe a more general approach,which inserts user suggestions into populations as individuals.This technique called Interactive GA is extended to Evolutionary based Cooperative Problem Solving(ECoPS).ECoPS uses a dynamic migration model parallel GA and problem specific modules,which exchange individuals with the GA.We will present empiric results on Interactive GA and discuss where using them might be helpful.We also describe a typical scenario for ECoPS. Interactive GAThe idea of using human knowledge or intuition as part of an optimization process has appeared in e.g.[KFM71].Most optimization techniques which work by improving a single solution step by step are not suited for this technique.In simple hill-climbing for example a user suggestion can either be accepted,which means the loss of results gained so far,or denied,which may lead the algorithm a wrong way.GA and other population based optimization procedures are better suited, because a suggestion can be put into the population to see whether it is worth further consideration or not.A good suggestion can be expected to survive and lead the optimization process towards a good solution,while a bad suggestion will be eliminated quite soon.The conclusion of this would be that user suggestions can only improve the result of a GA.Tofind out whether these expectations are confirmed we decided to test it on a simple problem using an elitist GA.We chose the well-known”Counting Ones”problem(see e.g.[Bae96],p.201ff).The main reason for this choice was that we needed to easilyfind solutions with a specificfitness-value to analyse the GA’s behavior when presented with poor or good suggestions.This requires an inversion of the evaluation function which is more complicated for other problems.Another reason was that large test sets can be computed fast with the”Counting Ones’”evaluation function.It is trivial to come up with good suggestions for the given problem.How-ever it is not so obvious what should be considered a bad or even an average suggestion.Let us consider an individual’s size of32bit and a population size of20individuals.The straightforward approach of defining an individual with an evaluation of16to be average is not a good one for statistical reasons.As can be shown,the best individual of the initial population will have an evaluation of about21when using random initialization.Therefore,a suggestion with an evaluation of16is certainly below average.We set up populations of20individuals,each32bit of size.Automatic sug-gestions for evaluation12,18,24or30were inserted at generations10,30,50 or70.We collected the number of generations needed to evolve the global max-imum.Each combination of evaluation and generation number was performed one thousand times.The results were the following:single point crossover two point crossoverGen70Gen50Gen30Gen10Gen70Gen50Gen30Gen10 Eval12135.0132.3133.7132.5126.1125.6124.7124.9Eval18132.5131.8134.0131.4123.6124.6121.0122.3Eval24132.1134.3130.9126.4124.9122.8122.4118.3Eval30107.591.675.362.9101.083.865.152.1 Fig.1.Average number of generations needed tofind maximum The table shows that good suggestions help tofind the maximum faster. Together with observations during runs it becomes clear that the number of suggestions and the moments at which they are made effective are important. The main problem in our opinion is to keep the number of insertions to the GA at a reasonable number.Suggesting the very same solution again and again has shown negative influence on the GA’s behavior in our experiments.The technique will be tested in solving harder problems.We are working on the optimization of material design processes right now and will use experts’knowledge about this topic in the way described.Cooperative Problem-SolvingThe results presented above encouraged us to incorporate different sources for suggestions besides ing different sources takes hybridization one step further.A migration model parallel GA already uses several independent sub-populations,so-called islands,which communicate by migrating individuals from one population to another.Replacing the GA on some of these islands by prob-lem specific modules makes it possible to use their results as suggestions for the other islands or to let them collect information from those.The optimization tool for material design processes mentioned above is equip-ped with a program for statistical design of experiments(see[BHH78]),which provides the GA with hints.We also use a database to collect all evaluations done so far(see Figure2).The combination of a statistical and an evolutionary approach also combines their advantages.Fig.2.Flow of information in ECoPS based on a migration model parallel GASummaryOur tests have shown that adding external sources of information to a GA can improve its results significantly while worse results by surviving bad proposals are unlikely.The integration of the described techniques into optimization tools is underway.To exploit the abilities of Interactive GA for example,it is necessary to provide the user with information about the optimization process and to facilitate making suggestions.There are several obvious approaches to specify parts of solutions instead of complete ones.Evolutionary based Cooperative Problem Solving requires the definition of a universal interface for communication among the participating programs and modules.Steps in this direction have been taken in implementing a connection between a parallel GA and a distributed database system.The interface designed for this purpose is tailored for other database-applications within GAs,too. References[Bae96]T.B¨a ck:Evolutionary Algorithms in Theory and Practice,Oxford University Press,1996[BHH78]G.E.Box,W.G.Hunter,J.S.Hunter:Statistics for Experimenters,John Wiley and Sons,1978[GB95]J.Graf,W.Banzhaf:Interactive Evolution For Simulated Natural Evolution,in:J.-M.Alliot et al.(Eds.)–Artificial Evolution,LNCS1063,Springer,1996 [KFM71]P.Krolak,W.Felts,G.Marble:A Man-Machine Approach Toward Solving the Traveling Salesman Problem,in:Communications of the ACM,Vol.14,No.5,May1971This article was processed using the L A T E X macro package with LLNCS style。