Related papers: A Study of Fitness Landscapes for Neuroevolution
Proteins evolve through complex sequence spaces, with fitness landscapes serving as a conceptual framework that links sequence to function. Fitness landscapes can be smooth, where multiple similarly accessible evolutionary paths are…
Fitness landscapes are mappings between genotypes, phenotypes, and fitness that shape evolution. In recent years, empirical work and theoretical models have greatly advanced our understanding of how populations navigate rugged fitness…
A significant challenge in nature-inspired algorithmics is the identification of specific characteristics of problems that make them harder (or easier) to solve using specific methods. The hope is that, by identifying these characteristics,…
The concept of a fitness landscape is a powerful metaphor that offers insight into various aspects of evolutionary processes and guidance for the study of evolution. Until recently, empirical evidence on the ruggedness of these landscapes…
A common view in evolutionary biology is that mutation rates are minimised. However, studies in combinatorial optimisation and search have shown a clear advantage of using variable mutation rates as a control parameter to optimise the…
In evolution theory the concept of a fitness landscape has played an important role, evolution itself being portrayed as a hill-climbing process on a rugged landscape. In this article it is shown that in general, in the presence of other…
Neural architecture search is a promising area of research dedicated to automating the design of neural network models. This field is rapidly growing, with a surge of methodologies ranging from Bayesian optimization,neuroevoltion, to…
Genotypic fitness landscapes are constructed by assessing the fitness of all possible combinations of a given number of mutations. In the last years, several experimental fitness landscapes have been completely resolved. As fitness…
We consider evolution of a large population, where fitness of each organism is defined by many phenotypical traits. These traits result from expression of many genes. We propose a new model of gene regulation, where gene expression is…
The tempo and mode of an adaptive process is strongly determined by the structure of the fitness landscape that underlies it. In order to be able to predict evolutionary outcomes (even on the short term), we must know more about the nature…
Morpho-evolution (ME) refers to the simultaneous optimisation of a robot's design and controller to maximise performance given a task and environment. Many genetic encodings have been proposed which are capable of representing design and…
Using Large Language Models (LLMs) in an evolutionary or other iterative search framework have demonstrated significant potential in automated algorithm design. However, the underlying fitness landscape, which is critical for understanding…
When a considerable number of mutations have no effects on fitness values, the fitness landscape is said neutral. In order to study the interplay between neutrality, which exists in many real-world applications, and performances of…
Random walks on multidimensional nonlinear landscapes are of interest in many areas of science and engineering. In particular, properties of adaptive trajectories on fitness landscapes determine population fates and thus play a central role…
These notes introduce probabilistic landscape models defined on high-dimensional discrete sequence spaces. The models are motivated primarily by fitness landscapes in evolutionary biology, but links to statistical physics and computer…
While prompt engineering has emerged as a crucial technique for optimizing large language model performance, the underlying optimization landscape remains poorly understood. Current approaches treat prompt optimization as a black-box…
Machine learning models increasingly map biological sequence-fitness landscapes to predict mutational effects. Effective evaluation of these models requires benchmarks curated from empirical data. Despite their impressive scales, existing…
One of the major concerns for neural network training is that the non-convexity of the associated loss functions may cause bad landscape. The recent success of neural networks suggests that their loss landscape is not too bad, but what…
Biological evolution can be conceptualized as a search process in the space of gene sequences guided by the fitness landscape, a mapping that assigns a measure of reproductive value to each genotype. Here we discuss probabilistic models of…
Players of coevolutionary games may update not only their strategies but also their networks of interaction. Based on interpreting the payoff of players as fitness, dynamic landscape models are proposed. The modeling procedure is carried…