Evolutionary Computation Glossary

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F

FAQ:

Frequently Asked Questions. See definition given before the main table of contents.

FITNESS:

(biol) Loosely: adaptedness. Often measured as, and sometimes equated to, relative reproductive success. Also proportional to expected time to extinction. "The fit are those who fit their existing ENVIRONMENTs and whose descendants will fit future environments." (J. Thoday, "A Century of Darwin", 1959). Accidents of history are relevant.

(EC) A value assigned to an INDIVIDUAL which reflects how well the individual solves the task in hand. A "fitness function" is used to map a CHROMOSOME to a FITNESS value. A "fitness landscape" is the hypersurface obtained by applying the fitness function to every point in the SEARCH SPACE.

FUNCTION OPTIMIZATION:

For a function which takes a set of N input parameters, and returns a single output value, F, FUNCTION OPTIMIZATION is the task of finding the set(s) of parameters which produce the maximum (or minimum) value of F. Function OPTIMIZATION is a type of VALUE-BASED PROBLEM.

FTP:

File Transfer Protocol. A system which allows the retrieval of files stored on a remote computer. Basic FTP requires a password before access can be gained to the remote computer. Anonymous FTP does not require a special password: after giving "anonymous" as the user name, any password will do (typically, you give your email address at this point). Files available by FTP are specified as <ftp-site-name>:<the-complete-filename> See Q15.5.

FUNCTION SET:

(GP) The set of operators used in GP. These functions label the internal (non-leaf) points of the parse trees that represent the programs in the POPULATION. An example FUNCTION SET might be {+, -, *}.

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Hitch Hiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation, Issue 6.4, released 21 December 1998
Copyright © 1993-1998 by J. Heitkötter and D. Beasley, all rights reserved.