Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life (202-1-5171)

אלגוריתמים אבלוציוניים וחיים מלאכותיים

Semester A, 2007-2008

Lecturer: Prof. Moshe Sipper

Teaching Assistant: Kfir Wolfson

Announcements

Apr. 29: Exercise 5 grades + final exercise average updated

Apr. 14: Exercise 5 grades + final exercise average now available

Apr. 5: Exercise 4 grades now available

Mar. 19: Exercise 5 is now ready

Mar. 15: Exercise 3 grades now available

Mar. 7: Exercise 4 is now ready

Mar. 1: Exercise 3 FAQ

Mar. 1: Exercise 2 grades now available

Feb. 27: Exercise 3 deadline postponed

Feb. 14: Exercise 2 deadline postponed

Feb. 12: Exercise 3 is now ready

Feb. 10: Exercise 1 grades now available

Feb. 1: Exercise 2 is now ready

Jan. 23: Exercise 1 is now ready

Jan. 21: Beginning of Semester A

Course Syllabus

bio-inspired computing, evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms, genetic programming, artificial life, cellular automata, cellular computing, self-replication, artificial neural networks.

Administrative Details

• Web: http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~sipper/courses/ecal081/
• Prerequisite: Design of Algorithms, Principles of Programming Languages
• Credits: 4.
• Time & Place:
  • Tuesday 14:00-16:00,
  • Wednesday 14:00-16:00,
• Grade:
  • 70%: Final exam
  • 30%: Exercises
• Exercises can be done in pairs.
• Final exam: Sample questions.

Bibliography

• M. Sipper, Machine Nature: The Coming Age of Bio-Inspired Computing, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2002.
• A. Tettamanzi & M. Tomassini, Soft Computing: Integrating Evolutionary, Neural, and Fuzzy Systems, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 2001.
• Z. Michalewicz. Genetic Algorithms + Data Structures = Evolution Programs. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 3rd edition, 1996.
• M. Mitchell, An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996.
• J. Koza, Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992.
• M. Sipper. Evolution of Parallel Cellular Machines: The Cellular Programming Approach. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1997.
• Papers from the research literature.

Popular Press

• ישראלים המציאו אלגוריתם שחמט המחקה את האבולוציה (Ynet, 29/7/2007, hebrew)
• המטריקס - בינתיים זה רק סרט (Nana, Part 1, 23/8/2004, hebrew)
• לך אל הנמלה, חוקר (Nana, Part 2, 30/8/2004, hebrew)
• Machine Nature (New Scientist, 28/9/2002)
• Computer Design Meets Darwin (Science, 26/9/1997)

Exercises
Read the instructions!
Ex	Due	Grades	Hall of Fame
1	Feb. 3		Liron Himi & Aviad Cohen,   Doron Meir & Yonatan Ashkenazi,   Tal Bereznitskey & Yoav Vardi,   Igal Shilman,   Yasmin Stiener & Itzik Hav
2	Feb. 19		Doron Meir, Yonatan Ashkenazi,   Morad Ankri, Dima Yagudayev,   Shira Gottlieb
3	Mar. 6		Doron Meir & Yonatan Ashkenazi,   Tal Bereznitskey & Yoav Vardi,   Shira Gottlieb
4	Mar. 25		Aviad Cohen & Liron Himi,   Itzik Hav & Yasmin Stiener,   Uri Shaham
5	Apr. 10		Doron Meir & Jonathan Ashkenazi,   Yasmeen Stiener & Itzik Hav,   Uri Shaham

final exercise average

Schedule
Date	Topic	Subtopic(s)
	Introduction	to Bio-Inspired Computing and Artificial Life
	Genetic Algorithms	Introduction (also here)
	Genetic Algorithms	Holland's Schema Theorem, Exact Schema Theorem
	Genetic Algorithms	8 Queens, Genetic Operators (also here), Evolution Strategies
	Genetic Algorithms	Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)
	Genetic Algorithms	Fuzzy Systems, Evolution of Fuzzy Systems, (ynet link on fuzzy systems)
	Genetic Algorithms	Coevolution of Fuzzy Systems, Coevolving Sorting Networks
	Genetic Algorithms	Coevolving Solutions to the SCS Problem
	Genetic Programming	Introduction (also here, here, and here)
	Genetic Programming	Examples (here and here), ADFs   (Short notes on GP, ADFs and branch typing)
	Genetic Programming	Varieties of GP, Architecture-Altering Operations
	Genetic Programming	Attaining Human-Competitive Game-Playing with Genetic Programming
	Genetic Programming	GP-Robocode, Excerpts from Koza's DVD
	Artificial Neural Networks	Introduction + Supervised Learning -- Perceptrons
	Artificial Neural Networks	Supervised Learning -- Backpropagation
	Artificial Neural Networks	Unsupervised Learning -- Self-Organizing Feature Maps (also here and here)
	Artificial Neural Networks	Evolving Artificial Neural Networks
	Cellular Computing	Cellular Automata (CA), Quasi-Uniform CA
	Cellular Computing	Emergence of Cellular Computing (also here)
	Cellular Computing	Cellular Programming (also here)
	Cellular Computing	Cellular Programming -- Coevolving Architectures for Cellular Machines
	Artificial Self-Replication	Self-Replication Page(also this paper)
	Genetic Programming	Finding a Common Motif of RNA Sequences using Genetic Programming
	Artificial Life	Introduction
	Artificial Life	Digital Universes, Lipidia (An Artificial Chemistry)
	Complex Networks	here and here

Last updated: Apr. 29, 2008