jason@CS.UCLA.EDU (02/14/88)
John Holland was here recently giving talks on genetic algorithms. I found the
concept rather intriguing. After hearing his lectures, I realized I needed to
do some introductory reading on the subject to fully appreciate its potential.
I am particularly interested in getting some references in the following areas:
(1) introductory theory behind GA
(2) its application to rule-based learning systems
(3) its relation to and implementation as neural nets
Thanks,
Jason Rosenberg Mira Hershey Hall
801 Hilgard Avenue
jason@cs.ucla.edu Los Angeles, CA 90024
{ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason (213) 209-1806smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (02/14/88)
In article <9430@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> jason@CS.UCLA.EDU () writes: >John Holland was here recently giving talks on genetic algorithms. I found >the >concept rather intriguing. After hearing his lectures, I realized I needed to >do some introductory reading on the subject to fully appreciate its potential. > The best source would be the book entitled INDUCTION, which Holland wrote with Holyoak, Nisbett, and Thagard. Most of the material from the talk is in Section 4.1 (I think). The preceding material leading up to the major argument is very well written, as is the subsequent discussion.
g451252772ea@deneb.ucdavis.edu (0040;0000001899;0;327;142;) (02/16/88)
The references, generally at good libraries, that I know of for GAs:
Introductory:
Holland, J., et al. INDUCTION. 1986, MIT Press. The book is a coherent
whole, not a collection of separately authored papers - and reads very well
by any standard. Most of it discusses human induction, but the main model
introduced early on is Holland's. And the human material is fascinating in
its own right, only partly because of the lucid presentation. The description
of Holland's GA is complete, and an alternative system, PI, is also presented.
This is a more familiar symbol-based production system, in LISP.
Holland, J. "Genetic Algorithms and Adaptation", in O. Selfridge, et al,
ADAPTIVE CONTROL OF ILL-DEFINED SYSTEMS. 1984, Plenum Press, NY. This is
a discrete chapter, in which an overview of GA is provided. Almost every main
theme is touched on.
Davis, L. GENETIC ALGORITHMS AND SIMULATED ANNEALING. 1987, Morgan Kauffman
Pub, Los Altos, CA. A collection of research papers by Holland's colleagues,
mostly (his INDUCTION chapters are reproduced here also). A good variety of
current work, and again very lucid as technical/research writing goes (by
contrast, the Neural net literature is hopeless). Topics include a study of
the TSP; parallel implementation of the CFS-C simulation library for GA on
the Connection Machine (nice!); Axlerod's study of GA in round-robins of the
iterated Prisoner's dilemma; a somewhat vague but very suggestive study on
designing a mapping from 'an East Asian language' onto a usable keyboard,
using a GA; some formal tests of 'hard' problems for GAs; and another
suggestive paper (for me) on producing long action sequences with GA by
means of 'hierarchical credit allocation' (this problem has parallels in
the animal-behavior literature I'm familiar with).
Holland, J. ADAPTION IN NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS. 1975, U. Michigan
Press. The definitive foundation, marred only by a generous use of formal
notation (not insensibly, but offputting nonetheless). The main conceptual
addition since this has been the interpretive change in INDUCTION, I think.
The GA community has held two conferences, last summer and in '86. The
proceedings are available from Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 365 Broadway,
Hillsdale, NJ 07642. My copy is on order ("Proc. Second International
Conf. on GA and their applications", held at Cambridge, MA, July 28-81, 1987).
And the various dissertations Holland has supervised are worth perusing via
U.Microfilm copies at $25 each.
For relating GA to NNets, I'll hazard to volunteer Richard Belew's name. He
responded to an earlier posting I made and stated an interest in what
commonalities there might be. He teaches at UCSD: rik@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu.
Oh yes: as the _very best_ intro article to GA, I recommend the final issue
of Science 86, for July, I think. Too bad that mag died.
Hopefully helpfully (let me know what else you find- I've been teaching this
material to budding animal behaviorists!) -
Ron Goldthwaite / UC Davis, Psychology and Animal Behavior
'Economics is a branch of ethics, pretending to be a science;
ethology is a science, pretending relevance to ethics.'