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Evolution in Dynamic Environments with Grammatical Evolution (EDGE)

The primary objective of the EDGE project is to analyse and improve the ability of Grammatical Evolution (GE) to find solutions in dynamic environments, facilitating its application to hard real-world dynamic problems. Many of the most challenging problems facing researchers and decision makers are those with a dynamic nature. That is, the environment in which the solution exists, and consequently the optimal solution itself, changes over time. The process of evolution has been particularly successful at producing organisms that can survive and adapt to ever-changing environments. Inspired by the workings of biological processes, this project develops a novel method and associated sofware tools which can be applied to solve hard dynamic problems. The project is funded under an SFI Principal Investigator award (08/IN.1/I1868). EDGE project highlights include:

A collaboration with Bell Labs has resulted in peer-reviewed publications (e.g., GECCO 2011 and GECCO 2012) and a patent application to the European Patent Office (EP2012360002).

Citi Media produced a video featuring our collaboration on Pattern Recognition for Anti Money Laundering. Also available from the IDA Ireland website.

We've published the second book on GE "Foundations in GE for Dynamic Environments" (Further details and book launch photos).

11 journal articles and 42 peer-reviewed conference papers have been published arising from EDGE research (as of August 2013). Sample list provided below.

4 PhD students, and 3 post doctoral researchers have been trained.

O'Neill was interviewed about the research in the EDGE project by Claire O'Connell (Irish Times contributor and freelance journalist).

Our research and collaboration with Bell Labs was highlighted in the Irish Times article "When software takes its cues from nature" (January 2013).

GameBrains is a translational research spin-off of GE in collaboration with the NDRC, Neat Sciences and former Electronic Arts VP Les Edgar.

Two open source software libraries have arisen, namely GEVA (Grammatical Evolution in Java) and GEM (Grammatical Evolution in Matlab).

We hosted the ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference GECCO 2011 in Dublin, Ireland 12-16 July 2011, which attracted approximately 600 delegates from 52 countries with an acceptance rate of 38%. A photo diary is available. We are very grateful to Science Foundation Ireland and Failte Ireland for providing financial support, which resulted in GECCO netting the Irish exchequr approximately €1Million.

EDGE project research has won four best paper awards, namely:

1. Murphy, E. (2011). Examining Grammars and Grammatical Evolution in Dynamic Environments GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Graduate Student Workshop.
2. Perez D, Nicolau M, O'Neill M, Brabazon A (2011). Evolving Behavior Trees for the Mario AI Competition Using Grammatical Evolution. EvoGAMES 2011, Turin, Italy, April.
3. Murphy E., O'Neill M, Brabazon A. (2011). Examining Mutation Landscapes In Grammar Based Genetic Programming, European Conference on Genetic Programming, EuroGP 2011, Turin, Italy, April.
4. Shao J., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Jive: A Generative, Interactive, Virtual, Evolutionary Music Systemi EvoMUSART 2010 the 8th European Event on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design Springer Istanbul, Turkey.

We have won prizes in a number of competitions with our Evolved Art:

1. Evolve the Next Evo* Image Competition held at EvoStar 2010. Our winning image appeared on the EvoStar events proceedings in 2011 (LNCS 6621, 6622, 6623, 6624, and 6625)
2. The evolved art "Digital Organic" placed 3rd in the UCD Research Images Competition 2011

Publications

   

1. Dempsey I., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2009). Foundations in Grammatical Evolution for Dynamic Environments. Springer.
2. O'Neill M., Brabazon A., Hemberg E. (2011). Tracer Spectrum: A visualisation method for distributed evolutionary computation. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines 12(2):161-171.
3. Galvan-Lopez E., Poli R., Kattan A., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Neutrality in Evolutionary Algorithms... What do we know? Evolving Systems 2(3):145-163.
4. Galvan-Lopez E., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Defining locality as a problem difficulty measure in genetic programming. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines 12(4):365-401.
5. O'Neill M., Vanneschi L., Gustafson S., Banzhaf W. (2010). Open Issues in Genetic Programming. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines 11(3-4):339-363.
6. McKay B., Nguyen X.H., Whigham P., Shan Y., O'Neill M. (2010). Grammar-based Genetic Programming: A survey. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines 11(3-4):365-396.
7. Hugosson J., Hemberg E., Brabazon A., O'Neill M. (2010). Genotype representations in Grammatical Evolution. Applied Soft Computing 10(1):36-43.
8. O'Neill M. (2009). Book Review: A Field Guide to Genetic Programming. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines 10(2):229-230.
9. O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2009). Recent Patents on Genetic Programming. Recent Patents on Computer Science 2(1):43-49.
10. O'Neill M., Hemberg E., Gilligan C., Bartley E., McDermott J., Brabazon A. (2009). GEVA: Grammatical Evolution in Java. SIGEVOlution 3(2):17-23.
11. Swafford J.M., et al (2012). Comparing Methods for Module Identification in Grammatical Evolution. In Proc. GECCO 2012. ACM.
12. Fagan D., et al (2012). Towards Adaptive Mutation in Grammatical Evolution. In Proc. GECCO 2012. ACM.
13. Hemberg E., Ho L., Claussen H., O'Neill M. (2012). Comparing the Robustness of Grammatical Genetic Programming Solutions. In Proc. GECCO 2012. ACM.
14. Hemberg E., Veeramachaneni K., McDermott J., O'Reilly U-M. (2012). An Investigation of Local Patterns For Estimation of Distribution Genetic Programming. In Proc. GECCO 2012. ACM.
15. Murphy E., Hemberg E., Nicolau M., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2012). Grammar Bias and Initialisation in Grammar Based Genetic Programming EuroGP 2012 the 15th European Conference on Genetic Programming Springer Malaga, Spain
16. Nicolau M., Saunders M., O'Neill M., Brabazon A., Osborne B. (2012). Evolving Interpolating Models of Net Ecosystem CO2 Exchange Using Grammatical Evolution EuroGP 2012 the 15th European Conference on Genetic Programming Springer Malaga, Spain
17. Nicolau M., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2012). Termination in Grammatical Evolution: Grammar Design, Wrapping, and Tails 2012 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation IEEE Brisbane, Australia.
18. McDermott J., Galvan-Lopez E., O'Neill M. (2011) A fine-grained view of phenotypes and locality in GP, Genetic Programming Theory and Practice IX, Ann Arbor.
19. Murphy E., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Examining Mutation Landscapes in Grammar Based Genetic Programming. EuroGP 2011 the 14th European Conference on Genetic Programming, LNCS6621. Springer.
20. Fagan D., Nicolau M., Hemberg E., O'Neill M., Brabazon A., McGarraghy S. (2011). Investigation of the Performance of Different Mapping Orders for GE on the Max Problem. EuroGP 2011 the 14th European Conference on Genetic Programming, LNCS6621. Springer.
21. Perez D., Nicolau M., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Evolving Behaviour Trees for the Mario Bros Game Using Grammatical Evolution EvoGAMES 2011 3rd European Event on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games Springer Torino, Italy.
22. Nicolau M., Costelloe D. (2011). Using Grammatical Evolution to Parameterise Interactive 3D Image Generation EvoMUSART 2011 9th European Event on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design Springer Torino, Italy.
23. Murphy E., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). A Comparison of GE and TAGE in Dynamic Environments GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation ACM Dublin, Ireland.
24. Pospichal P., Murphy E., O'Neill M., Jaros J., Schwarz J. (2011). Acceleration of Grammatical Evolution Using Graphics Processing Units GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation CIGPU Workshop ACM Dublin, Ireland.
25. Hemberg E., Ho L., O'Neill M., Claussen H. (2011). A Symbolic Regression Approach To Manage Femtocell Coverage Using Grammatical Genetic Programming GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation SRM Workshop ACM Dublin, Ireland.
26. Murphy E. (2011). Examining Grammars and Grammatical Evolution in Dynamic Environments GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Graduate Student Workshop ACM Dublin, Ireland.
27. Fagan D. (2011). Genotype-Phenotype Mapping in Grammatical Evolution GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Graduate Student Workshop ACM Dublin, Ireland.
28. Perez D., Nicolau M., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Reactiveness and Navigation in Computer Games: Different Needs, Different Approaches Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games 273-280 IEEE Seoul, South Korea.
29. Fagan D., O'Neill M., Galvan-Lopez E., Brabazon A., McGarraghy S. (2010). An analysis of Genotype-Phenotype Maps in Grammatical Evolution EuroGP 2010 the 13th European Conference on Genetic Programming 62-73 LNCS 6021 Springer A.I. Esparcia-Alcazar et al. (Eds.) Istanbul, Turkey.
30. Byrne J., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). An analysis of the behaviour of mutation in Grammatical Evolution EuroGP 2010 the 13th European Conference on Genetic Programming Springer Istanbul, Turkey.
31. Shao J., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Jive: A Generative, Interactive, Virtual, Evolutionary Music System EvoMUSART 2010 the 8th European Event on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design Springer Istanbul, Turkey.
32. Galvan-Lopez E., Swafford J.M., O'Neill M. (2010). Evolving a Ms.Pac-man Controller using Grammatical Evolution 2nd European event on Bio-inspired Algorithms in Games Springer Istanbul, Turkey.
33. Galvan-Lopez E., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Towards an Understanding of Locality in Genetic Programming GECCO 2010 ACM Portland, Oregon.
34. Murphy E., O'Neill M., Galvan-Lopez E., Brabazon A. (2010). Tree-Adjunct Grammatical Evolution IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2010 IEEE Press Barcelona, Spain.
35. Galvan-Lopez E., Fagan D., Murphy E., Swafford J.M., Agapitos A., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Comparing the Performance of the Evolvable PiGrammatical Evolution Genotype-Phenotype Map to Grammatical Evolution in the Dynamic Ms. Pac-Man Environment IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2010 IEEE Press Barcelona, Spain.
36. Galvan-Lopez E., McDermott J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Defining Locality in Genetic Programming to Predict Performance IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2010 IEEE Press Barcelona, Spain.
37. Fagan D., Nicolau M., O'Neill M., Galvan-Lopez E., Brabazon A. (2010). Investigating Mapping Order in piGE. IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2010 IEEE Press Barcelona, Spain.
38. McDermott J, Galvan-Lopez E., O'Neill M. (2010). GP Locality with Binary Decision Diagrams as Ant Phenotypes PPSN 2010 - 11th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature Springer Krakow, Poland
39. Byrne J., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2010). Optimising Offensive Moves in Toribash Proceedings of Mendel 2010 16th International Conference on Soft Computing 78-85 Brno Technical University Brno, Czech Republic.
40. Murphy J.E., Carr H., O'Neill M. (2010). Animating Horse Gaits and Transitions EG UK Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics 2010 The Eurographics Assoication University of Sheffield, UK
41. Murphy J.E., O'Neill M., Carr H. (2009). Exploring Grammatical Evolution for Horse Gait Optimisation EuroGP 2009 the 12th European Conference on Genetic Programming Springer Tubingen, Germany.
42. Byrne J., O'Neill M., McDermott J., Brabazon A. (2009). Structural and Nodal Mutation in Grammatical Evolution Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference GECCO 2009 ACM Montreal, Canada
43. Byrne J., O'Neill M., Hemberg E., Brabazon A. (2009). Analysis of Constant Creation Techniques on the Binomial-3 Problem in Grammatical Evolution IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation IEEE Press Norway.
44. Galvan E., O'Neill M. (2009). On the Effects of Locality in a Permutation Problem: The Sudoku Puzzle IEEE Symposium in Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2009) IEEE Press Milano, Italy.
45. Galvan-Lopez E., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2009). Towards Understanding the Effects of Locality in Genetic Programming Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (MICAI 2009) Springer Mexico.
46. Le-Khac, N.A., Markos, S., O'Neill, M., Brabazon, A. and Kechadi, M-T. (2009). An efficient Search Tool for an Anti-Money Laundering Application of an Multi-national Bank's Dataset The International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering, (IKE 09) Las Vegas, NV, USA.
47. Le-Khac, N.A., Markos, S., O'Neill, M., Brabazon, A. and Kechadi, M-T. (2009). An investigation into Data Mining approaches for Anti-money Laundering IEEE International Conference on Knowledge Discovery, (ICKD'09) IEEE Press Manila, Philippines.
48. O'Neill M., Nicolau M., Brabazon A. (2011). Dynamic Environments can speed up evolution with Genetic Programming GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation ACM Dublin, Ireland, and Technical Report UCD-CSI-2011-03 UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics.
49. Fagan D., Nicolau M., Hemberg E., O'Neill M., Brabazon A. (2011). Dynamic Ant: Introducing a new benchmark for Genetic Programming in Dynamic Environments GECCO 2011: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation ACM Dublin, Ireland, and Technical Report UCD-CSI-2011-04 UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics.
50. O'Neill M. (2010). Recent Adventures in Grammar-based Genetic Programming Mendel'10 16th International Conference on Soft Computing Brno, Czech Republic. Keynote.