Contents -- Introduction -- I: A COMPARISON OF EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS -- 1 Organic Evolution and Problem Solving -- 1.1 Biological Background -- 1.2 Evolutionary Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence -- 1.3 Evolutionary Algorithms and Global Optimization -- 1.4 Early Approaches -- 1.5 Summary -- 2 Specific Evolutionary Algorithms -- 2.1 Evolution Strategies -- 2.2 Evolutionary Programming -- 2.3 Genetic Algorithms -- 2.4 Summary -- 3 Artificial Landscapes -- 3.1 Sphere Model -- 3.2 Step Function -- 3.3 Ackley's Function -- 3.4 Function after Fletcher and Powell -- 3.5 Fractal Function -- 3.6 Summary -- 4 An Empirical Comparison -- 4.1 Convergence Velocity: ƒ[sub(1)], ƒ[sub(2)] -- 4.2 Convergence Reliability: ƒ[sub(3)], ƒ[sub(4)], and ƒ[sub(5)] -- 4.3 Summary -- II: EXTENDING GENETIC ALGORITHMS -- 5 Selection -- 5.1 Selection Mechanisms -- 5.2 Experimental Investigation of Selection -- 5.3 Summary -- 6 Mutation -- 6.1 Simplified Genetic Algorithms -- 6.2 Summary -- 7 An Experiment in Meta-Evolution -- 7.1 Parallel Evolutionary Algorithms -- 7.2 The Algorithm -- 7.3 Evolving Convergence Velocity -- 7.4 Summary -- Summary and Outlook -- APPENDICES -- A: Data for the Fletcher-Powell Function -- B: Data from Selection Experiments -- C: Software -- C.1 Overview -- C.2 Usage -- C.3 Data Collection -- D: The Multiprocessor Environment -- D.1 The Transputer System -- D.2 The Helios Operating System -- E: Mathematical Symbols -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W.