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Crossover in Grammatical Evolution: The Search Continues

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Genetic Programming (EuroGP 2001)

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Abstract

Grammatical Evolution is an evolutionary automatic programming algorithm that can produce code in any language, requiring as inputs a BNF grammar definition describing the output language, and the fitness function. The utility of crossover in GP systems has been hotly debated for some time, and this debate has also arisen with respect to Grammatical Evolution. This paper serves to continue an analysis of the crossover operator in Grammatical Evolution by looking at the result of turning off crossover, and by exchanging randomly generated blocks in a headless chicken-like crossover. Results show that crossover in Grammatical Evolution is essential on the problem domains examined. The mechanism of one-point crossover in Grammatical Evolution is discussed, resulting in the discovery of some interesting properties that could yield an insight into the operator’s success.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Of Computer Science And Information Systems, University of Limerick, Ireland

    Michael O’Neill & Conor Ryan

  2. Danish Hydraulic Institute, Denmark

    Maarten Keijzer

  3. Tiger Mountain Scientific, UK

    Mike Cattolico

Authors
  1. Michael O’Neill
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  2. Conor Ryan
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  3. Maarten Keijzer
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  4. Mike Cattolico
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham

    Julian Miller

  2. Computer Science Institute, University of Lausanne, Lausanne

    Marco Tomassini

  3. Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

    Pier Luca Lanzi

  4. Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick, Limerick

    Conor Ryan

  5. Dipartimento di Tecnologie dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

    Andrea G. B. Tettamanzi

  6. Department of Computer Science, University College London, London

    William B. Langdon

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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O’Neill, M., Ryan, C., Keijzer, M., Cattolico, M. (2001). Crossover in Grammatical Evolution: The Search Continues. In: Miller, J., Tomassini, M., Lanzi, P.L., Ryan, C., Tettamanzi, A.G.B., Langdon, W.B. (eds) Genetic Programming. EuroGP 2001. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2038. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45355-5_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45355-5_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41899-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45355-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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