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Auxiliary Publications
The papers listed on this page have been brought to the attention of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab.  We have not reviewed then nor do we endorse their content, but believe they might be of interest to visitors to this site.  Please direct any communication directly to the authors. Inquiries should be sent to Evolutionary.Informatics at gmail dot com.
Papers

 

  1. Eytan H. Suchard, "Genetic Algorithms and Irreduciblity," Metivity Ltd, email: Eytan_il at netvision dot com (2007) 
    • Abstract Genetic Algorithms are a good method of optimization if the target function to be optimized conforms to some important properties. The most importantof a is thatthe sought for solution can be approached by cumulative mutations such that the Markov chain which models the intermediate genes has a probability that doesn‘t tend to zero as the gene grows. In other words each improvementof the gene -setof 0s and 1s follows from a reasonable edit distance - minimum number of bits that change between two genes -and the overa probability of these mutations does not vanish. If for reaching an improvement, the edit distance is too big then GAs are not usefuleven after millions of generations and huge populations of millions of individuals. If on the other hand the probability of a chain of desired mutations tends to zero as the chain grows then also the GA fails. There are target functions that can be approached by cumulative mutations but yet, statistically defy GAs. This short paper represents a relatively simple target function that its minimization can be achieved stepwise by small cumulative mutations but yet GAs fail to converge to the right solution in ordinary GAs. [ pdf | code
  2. P. Borger, "Solving the RNA virus paradox" TIRIO, Germany. email: peterborger at hotmail dot com
    • Abstract. RNA viruses are a class of viruses that use RNA molecule(s) for information storage and some of them, such as influenza and HIV, pose and an increasing threat to human health. A clear understanding of the origin of RNA viruses may help fighting them off, or even preventing them from becoming virulent. It has been proposed that these RNA viruses have a long evolutionary history, appearing with, or perhaps before, the first cellular life-forms [1]. Molecular genetic analyses demonstrated genomes, including that of humans and primates, are riddled with “endogenous retroviruses” (ERVs), which are currently explained as the remnants of ancient RNA virus-invasions. RNA virus origins can be estimated using homologous genes found in both ERVs and modern RNA virus families. By using the best estimates for rates of evolutionary change (nucleotide substitution) and assuming an approximate molecular clock [2, 3], the families of RNA viruses found today “could only have appeared very recently, probably not more than about 50,000 years ago” [4]. These data imply that present-day RNA viruses may have originated more recently than our own species. The observation of a recent origin of RNA viruses and the presence of genomic ERVs poses an apparent paradox that has to be resolved. I will argue, in order to solve the paradox, we should abstain from the mainstream idea that ERVs are remnants of ancient RNA virus invasions.  [pdf]
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