Related papers: On the Covariance-Hessian Relation in Evolution St…
We study the theoretical capacity to statistically learn local landscape information by Evolution Strategies (ESs). Specifically, we investigate the covariance matrix when constructed by ESs operating with the selection operator alone. We…
The mutation process in evolution strategies has been interlinked with the normal distribution since its inception. Many lines of reasoning have been given for this strong dependency, ranging from maximum entropy arguments to the need for…
The class of algorithms called Hessian Estimation Evolution Strategies (HE-ESs) update the covariance matrix of their sampling distribution by directly estimating the curvature of the objective function. The approach is practically…
We present a novel black box optimization algorithm called Hessian Estimation Evolution Strategy. The algorithm updates the covariance matrix of its sampling distribution by directly estimating the curvature of the objective function. This…
We present a hybrid algorithm between an evolution strategy and a quasi Newton method. The design is based on the Hessian Estimation Evolution Strategy, which iteratively estimates the inverse square root of the Hessian matrix of the…
The (1+1)-evolution strategy (ES) with success-based step-size adaptation is analyzed on a general convex quadratic function and its monotone transformation, that is, $f(x) = g((x - x^*)^\mathrm{T} H (x - x^*))$, where…
Evolutionary algorithms, inspired by natural evolution, aim to optimize difficult objective functions without computing derivatives. Here we detail the relationship between population genetics and evolutionary optimization and formulate a…
We discuss stochastic dynamics of populations of individuals playing games. Our models possess two evolutionarily stable strategies: an efficient one, where a population is in a state with the maximal payoff (fitness) and a risk-dominant…
We consider the evolution of populations under the joint action of mutation and differential reproduction, or selection. The population is modelled as a finite-type Markov branching process in continuous time, and the associated…
Existing theoretical models of evolution focus on the relative fitness advantages of different mutants in a population while the dynamic behavior of the population size is mostly left unconsidered. We here present a generic stochastic model…
In this paper we investigate the convergence properties of a variant of the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES). Our study is based on the recent theoretical foundation that the pure rank-mu update CMA-ES performs the…
The Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) has been the most successful Evolution Strategy at exploiting covariance information; it uses a form of Principle Component Analysis which, under certain conditions, is suggested…
Coevolving and competing species or game-theoretic strategies exhibit rich and complex dynamics for which a general theoretical framework based on finite populations is still lacking. Recently, an explicit mean-field description in the form…
We consider a system of two competing populations in two-dimensional heterogeneous environments. The populations are assumed to move horizontally and vertically with different probabilities, but are otherwise identical. We regard these…
The growth of a population divided among spatial sites, with migration between the sites, is sometimes modelled by a product of random matrices, with each diagonal elements representing the growth rate in a given time period, and…
Quality gain is the expected relative improvement of the function value in a single step of a search algorithm. Quality gain analysis reveals the dependencies of the quality gain on the parameters of a search algorithm, based on which one…
Evolution is a dynamic process. The two classical forces of evolution are mutation and selection. Assuming small mutation rates, evolution can be predicted based solely on the fitness differences between phenotypes. Predicting an…
Evolutionary branching is analysed in a stochastic, individual-based population model under mutation and selection. In such models, the common assumption is that individual reproduction and life career are characterised by values of a…
Consider a mathematical model of evolutionary adaptation of fitness landscape and mutation matrix as a reaction to population changes. As a basis, we use an open quasispecies model, which is modified to include explicit death flow. We…
Population-based evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been widely applied to solve various optimization problems. The question of how the performance of a population-based EA depends on the population size arises naturally. The performance of…