PREFACE

This guide is intended to help, provide basic information, and serve as a first straw for individuals, i.e. uninitiated hitch-hikers, who are stranded in the mindboggling universe of Evolutionary Computation (EC); that in turn is only a small footpath to an even more mindboggling scientific universe, that, incorporating Fuzzy Systems, and Artificial Neural Networks, is sometimes referred to as Computational Intelligence (CI); that in turn is only part of an even more advanced scientific universe of mindparalysing complexity, that incorporating Artificial Life, Fractal Geometry, and other Complex Systems Sciences might someday be referred to as Natural Computation (NC).

Over the course of the past years, GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION algorithms imitating certain principles of nature have proved their usefulness in various domains of applications. Especially worth copying are those principles where nature has found "stable islands" in a "turbulent ocean" of solution possibilities. Such phenomena can be found in annealing processes, central nervous systems and biological EVOLUTION, which in turn have lead to the following OPTIMIZATION methods: Simulated Annealing (SA), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and the field of Evolutionary Computation (EC).

EC may currently be characterized by the following pathways: Genetic Algorithms (GA), Evolutionary Programming (EP), Evolution Strategies (ES), Classifier Systems (CFS), Genetic Programming (GP), and several other problem solving strategies, that are based upon biological observations, that date back to Charles Darwin's discoveries in the 19th century: the means of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, and theories of evolution. The inspired algorithms are thus termed Evolutionary Algorithms (EA).

Moreover, this guide is intended to help those who are just beginning to read the comp.ai.genetic newsgroup, and those who are new "on" USENET. It shall help to avoid lengthy discussions of questions that usually arise for beginners of one or the other kind, and which are boring to read again and again by comp.ai.genetic "old-timers."

You will see this guide popping up periodically in the Usenet newsgroup comp.ai.genetic (and also comp.answers , and news.answers , where it should be locatable at any time).

This guide was produced by Jörg Heitkötter (known as Joke) in early 1993, using material from many sources (see Acknowledgements ), mixed with his own brand of humour. Towards the end of 1993, Jörg handed over editorial responsibility to David Beasley . He reorganised the guide in various ways, and generally attempted to inject his own brand of orderliness. Thus, any jokes are the work of Joke. The mundane bits are David's responsibility.

The guide is kept up to date, as far as possible, and new versions are issued several times a year. However, we do rely on useful information being sent to us for inclusion in the guide (we dont always have time to read comp.ai.genetic , for example). Contributions, additions, corrections, cash, etc. are therefore always welcome. Send e-mail to the address at the beginning of the guide.

This WWW version of the FAQ is the result of a project to translate the original text version to HTML. We hope you dont encounter any problems, as you are reading, but if you do, we apologise for the inconvenience.