booker@NRL-AIC.ARPA.UUCP (11/18/87)
Ron Goldthwaite of UCalif, Davis asks > Holland's PhD students do odd theses: adaptive control of a refinery; > pallett-loading scheduling; other pragmatic stuff. Why? In fact, a large number of Holland's PhD students have done theses that are not "pragmatic" at all in the way you indicate. Here are a few examples that come to mind: Rosenberg, R. S. (1967) "Simulation of genetic populations with biochemical properties", studies the evolution of populations of single-celled organisms. Reynolds, R. G. (1979) "An adaptive computer model of the evolution of agriculture for hunter-gatherers in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico", a study that explains a body of archaeological findings. Booker, L. B. (1982) "Intelligent behavior an an adaptation to the task environment", a computational model of cognition and learning in simple creatures. Perry, Z. A. (1984) "Experimental study of speciation in ecological niche theory using genetic algorithms" Grosso, P. B. (1985) "Computer simulation of genetic adaptation: Parallel subcomponent interaction in a multilocus model", studies diploid representations and explicit migration among subpopulations. There are many other articles and tech reports of a similar nature having to do with genetic algorithms and classifier systems. The "pragmatic stuff" seems to be the work that is most interesting to the AI community. Lashon Booker booker@nrl-aic.arpa