PLAZZMID: Evolutionary algorithms from bacterial and bee genomes
Lead Research Organisation:
University of York
Department Name: Computer Science
Abstract
Classical evolutionary algorithms have been extremely successful at solving certain problems. But they implement a very simple model of evolutionary biology that misses out several aspects that might be exploited by more sophisticated algorithms. We have previously critiqued the traditional naive approach to bio-inspired algorithm design, that moves straight from a simplistic description of the biology into some algorithm. PLAZZMID uses a more sophisticated process for developing richer evolutionary algorithms abstracted from various processes of biological evolution, with a corresponding richer analogical computational structure. The PLAZZMID approach will be used to explore questions from theoretical evolutionary biology, and to solve dynamic computational problems, such as evolving for homeostasis in a variable environment.
Organisations
Publications
Simon Hickinbotham
(2011)
Embodied genomes and metaprogramming
in ECAL 2011, Paris, France, August 2011
Simon Hickinbotham
(2010)
Diversity from a monoculture: effects of mutation-on-copy in a string-based artificial chemistry
in ALife XII, Odense, Denmark, August 2010
Simon Hickinbotham
(2012)
Specification of the stringmol chemical programming language version 0.2
Nellis A.
(2014)
Computational novelty: Phenomena, mechanisms, worlds
in Artificial Life 14 - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, ALIFE 2014
Nellis A.
(2010)
Automatically moving between levels in artificial chemistries
in Artificial Life XII: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, ALIFE 2010
Hickinbotham SJ
(2021)
Nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of parasitism: evolution of complex replication strategies.
in Royal Society open science
Hickinbotham S
(2011)
Advances in Artificial Life. Darwin Meets von Neumann
Hickinbotham S
(2016)
Maximizing the Adjacent Possible in Automata Chemistries.
in Artificial life
Description | The project developed the novel Artificial Chemistry stringmol, a form of assembly language AChem. It exploited it in several scenarios to uncover the crucial importance of several properties needed by an AChem to produce a rich complex system of reactions. In particular, systems seeded with imperfect replicators exhibited several evolutionary properties shared by biological organisms. |
Exploitation Route | A detailed specification of the AChem is provided in a Technical Report, allowing others to experiment with the same system. Additionally a web-based version is available. The stringmol system has subsequently been used as a research tool in an EU-funded project, EvoEvo |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education |