From recombination of genes to the estimation of distributions I. binary parameters

Abstract. The Breeder Genetic Algorithm (BGA) is based on the equation for the response to selection. In order to use this equation for prediction, the variance of the tness of the population has to be estimated. For the usual sexual recombination the computation can be di cult. In this paper we shortly state the problem and investigate several modi cations of sexual recombination. The rst method is gene pool recombination, which leads to marginal distribution algorithms. In the last part of the paper we discuss more sophisticated methods, based on estimating the distribution of promising points.