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Using Numerical Simplification to Control Bloat in Genetic Programming

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Simulated Evolution and Learning (SEAL 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 5361))

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Abstract

In tree based genetic programming there is a tendency for the size of the programs to increase from generation to generation, a process known as bloat. It is standard practice to place some form of control on program size either by limiting the number of nodes or the depth of the tree, or by adding a component to the fitness function that rewards smaller programs (parsimony pressure). Others have proposed directly simplifying individual programs using algebraic methods. In this paper, we add node-based numerical simplification as a tree pruning criterion to control program size. We show that simplification results in reductions in expected program size, memory use and computation time. We further show that numerical simplification performs at least as well as algebraic simplification alone, and in some cases will outperform algebraic simplification.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand

    David Kinzett, Mengjie Zhang & Mark Johnston

Authors
  1. David Kinzett
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  2. Mengjie Zhang
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  3. Mark Johnston
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and information Technology, RMIT University, VIC 3001, Melbourne, Australia

    Xiaodong Li

  2. Melbourne School Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3001, Melbourne, Australia

    Michael Kirley

  3. School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, 6140, Wellington, New Zealand

    Mengjie Zhang

  4. Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton Campus, VIC 3800, Australia

    David Green

  5. School of Computer Science and Information Technology, RMIT University, VIC 3001, Melbourne, Australia

    Vic Ciesielski

  6. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia

    Hussein Abbass

  7. School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, SA 5005, Adelaide, Australia

    Zbigniew Michalewicz

  8. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

    Tim Hendtlass

  9. Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kanpur Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (KanGAL), 208016, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Kalyanmoy Deb

  10. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 3, 117576, Singapore

    Kay Chen Tan

  11. Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, 76128, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Jürgen Branke

  12. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 215123, Suzhoum, China

    Yuhui Shi

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kinzett, D., Zhang, M., Johnston, M. (2008). Using Numerical Simplification to Control Bloat in Genetic Programming. In: Li, X., et al. Simulated Evolution and Learning. SEAL 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5361. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89694-4_50

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89694-4_50

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-89693-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-89694-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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