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Within Genetic Algorithms (GAs) the mutation rate is mostly handled as a global, external parameter, which is constant over time or exogeneously changed over time. In this paper a new approach is presented, which transfers a basic idea from Evolution Strategies (ESs) to GAs. Mutation rates are changed into endogeneous items which are adapting during the search process. First experimental results are presented, which indicate that environment-- dependent self--adaptation of appropriate settings for the mutation rate is possible even for GAs. Furthermore, the reduction of the number of external parameters of a GA is seen as a first step towards achieving a problem--dependent self--adaptation of the algorithm. Introduction Natural evolution has proven to be a powerful mechanism for emergence and improvement of the living beings on our planet by performing a randomized search in the space of possible DNA-sequences. Due to this knowledge about the qualities of natural evolution, some resea...

This paper discusses the use of genetic algorithms (GAs) for automatic software test data generation. This research extends previous work on dynamic test data generation where the problem of test data generation is reduced to one of minimizing a function [Miller and Spooner, 1976, Korel, 1990]. In our work, the function is minimized by using one of two genetic algorithms in place of the local minimization techniques used in earlier research. We describe the implementation of our GA-based system, and examine the effectiveness of this approach on a number of programs, one of which is significantly larger than those for which results have previously been reported in the literature. We also examine the effect of program complexity on the test data generation problem by executing our system on a number of synthetic programs that have varying complexities. 1 Introduction An important aspect of software testing involves judging how well a series of test inputs tests a piece of code. Usuall...

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Code space is a critical issue facing designers of software for embedded systems. Many traditional compiler optimizations are designed to reduce the execution time of compiled code, but not necessarily the size of the compiled code. Further, di#erent results can be achieved by running some optimizations more than once and changing the order in which optimizations are applied. Register allocation only complicates matters, as the interactions between di#erent optimizations can cause more spill code to be generated. The compiler for embedded systems, then, must take care to use the best sequence of optimizations to minimize code space.

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Software systems are typically modi ed inorder to extend or change their functionality, improve their performance, port them to di erent platforms, and so on. For developers, it is crucial to understand the structure of a system before attempting to modify it. The structure of a system, however, may not be apparent to new developers, because the design documentation is non-existent or, worse, inconsistent with the implementation. This problem could be alleviated if developers were somehow able to produce high-level system decomposition descriptions from the low-level structures present in the source code. We have developed a clustering tool called Bunch that creates a system decomposition automatically by treating clustering as an optimization problem. This paper describes the extensions made to Bunch in response to feedback we received from users. The most important extension, in terms of the quality of results and execution e ciency, is a feature that enables the integration of designer knowledge about the system structure into an otherwise fully automatic clustering process. We use a case study to show how our new features simpli ed the task of extracting the subsystem structure ofamedium size program, while exposing an interesting design aw in the process.

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This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the most popular constraint-handling techniques currently used with evolutionary algorithms. We review approaches that go from simple variations of a penalty function, to others, more sophisticated, that are biologically inspired on emulations of the immune system, culture or ant colonies. Besides describing briefly each of these approaches (or groups of techniques), we provide some criticism regarding their highlights and drawbacks. A small comparative study is also conducted, in order to assess the performance of several penalty-based approaches with respect to a dominance-based technique proposed by the author, and with respect to some mathematical programming approaches. Finally, we provide some guidelines regarding how to select the most appropriate constraint-handling technique for a certain application, ad we conclude with some of the the most promising paths of future research in this area.

This paper presents results from an experimental computer simulated stock market. In this market artificial intelligence algorithms take on the role of traders. They make predictions about the future, and buy and sell stock as indicated by their expectations of future risk and return. Prices are set endogenously to clear the market. Time series from this market are analyzed from the standpoint of well-known empirical features in real markets. The simulated market is able to replicate several of these phenomenon, including fundamental and technical predictability, volatility persistence, and leptokurtosis. Moreover, agent behavior is shown to be consistent with these features, in that they condition on the variables that are found to be significant in the time series tests. Agents are also able to collectively learn a homogeneous rational expectations equilibrium for certain parameters giving both time series and individual forecast values