Re: [eaml-design] Initial focus

[Andreas R. <aru...@ac...>]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2002 10:22:43 +1300
"Mariusz Nowostawski" <ma...@ma...> wrote:

> *) what is the basic elementary building block of the individual
> genome? (single gene, single chromosome or a whole genome?)
> 
> I think the user should be free to specify it on a arbitrary
> level. E.g.
> - the genome is one chromosome which is a list of binary genes
> - the genome is two chromosomes one of which is a list of genes with
> integer numbers and the second is a list of genes with an alphabet
> consisting of symbols  [A, B, C, D].
> - the genome is one chromosome which is a tree-like structure
> etc.

Case 2 is the 'most general' one. The others are just special cases.
My prososal for the structure of an individual:

- One individual contains one chromosome set (the genome).
- The chromosome set contains an arbitrary number of chromosomes.
- Each chromosome has a particular type, e.g. binary string, single
int number, an alphabet of symbols, a matrix, a tree structure ...
 
> We can have operators operating on: gene, chromosome, genome, and
> group of individuals. Do we inline the operators into the genetic
> structure description? Or do we "link" them externally?

Operators should be linked externally. In general we have three levels
of operators.

- first : operators working on chromosomes (i.e. recombination, mutation)
  each of these operators is valid for one particular chromosome type,
  for instance an operator which does a mutation of a bit string. The same
  is valid for recombination. We can mate two chromosomes containing integer
  numbers, but an integer number recombined with a tree structure does not
  make any sense.
- second level : operators working on individuals. They require access to
  the whole set of chromosomes and alter individual attributes. An example
  would be the evaluation and the assignment of a valid fitness or score.
- third level : operators working on collections of individuals. They
  could provide functionality like adding a collection to a population or
  migrating individuals between populations.
 
> This is the tricky bit. It is almost like OO programming paradigm: the
> "types" are limited to genes/ chromosomes/ genomes/ individuals/
> populations, the objects are limited to actual genes/ genomes etc and
> the operators are all like methods.  We could have a way of specifying
> in which order all the operators should be applied - but I am sure it
> would require the complete theory of this "programming paradigm.
> I am sure it would make a quite interesting research project - but for
> now I think we should concentrate only on the first - structural
> aspects.

See above. Only third level operators can be linked together to form
an algorithm. It is up to the user to ensure that the link structure
makes sense. Such a model would provide the highest flexibility possible,
for the cost of simplicity.


Andreas


-- 
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+ Andreas Rummler                                                              +
+ Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany                                     +
+ Department Of Microelectronic Circuits And Systems            (__)           +
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