Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!pat
From: pat@cs.strath.ac.uk (Pat Prosser)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: GENETIC LEARNING ALGORITHMS
Keywords: order based chromosones
Message-ID: <1258@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Nov 88 12:03:04 GMT
References: <7104@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3f6f0e38.142c4@retina.engin.umich.edu>
Reply-To: pat@cs.strath.ac.uk
Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Scotland.
Lines: 15


Genetic Algorithms (GA's) traditionally represent the genetic string
(chromosone) using a binary alphabet; Holland has shown this to be
optimal. It is not the only alphabet, a purely symbolic alphabet is
possible if appropriate genetic operators are defined. For example

[1] P. Prosser, "A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Pallet Loading"
    European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1988
[2] Derek Smith, "Bin Packing with Adaptive Search"
    Proceedings ICGAA 1985
[3] David Goldberg, "Alleles, Loci and the Travelling Salesman
    Problem"

The only problem with non-binary alphabet is the limits of our
imagination.