Representations for Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

In the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms (GEAs), a large amount of theory and empirical study has been focused on operators and test problems, while problem representation has often been taken as given. This book breaks with this tradition and provides a comprehensive overview on the influence of problem representations on GEA performance. The book summarizes existing knowledge regarding problem representations and describes how basic properties of representations, such as redundancy, scaling, or locality, influence the performance of GEAs and other heuristic optimization methods. Using the developed theory, representations can be analyzed and designed in a theory-guided matter. The theoretical concepts are used for solving integer optimization problems and network design problems more efficiently. The book is written in an easy-readable style and is intended for researchers, practitioners, and students who want to learn about representations. This second edition extends the analysis of the basic properties of representations and introduces a new chapter on the analysis of direct representations.