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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Genetic Algorithms

I have been busy for the past few months and it reflects on the time it took to bring out another post on my very beloved blog. Since getting admitted to post-graduate studies I have been fascinated by non-deterministic algorithms that are used to solve NP hard problems with reasonable accuracy. The branch of study I am referring to is known as "Soft-Computing".

There are various such algorithms that are based on the natural actions or inspired from nature. Some examples are Genetic Algorithms, Artificial Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, et cetera. What is so fascinating about this branch is that non-determinism and confusion are the concepts that determine the solution! When I say determine the solution I never mean to imply it finds out the exact solution always, it does not. These computations will find out the approximate results that are good enough for humans to understand and apply.

Let me try to elaborate each of these wonderful concepts to the best I can. In this part I shall be elaborating on Genetic algorithms.