This letter presents the idea that neural backpropagation is exploiting dendritic processing to enable individual neurons to perform autoencoding. Using a very simple connection weight search heuristic and artificial neural network model, the effects of interleaving autoencoding for each neuron in a hidden layer of a feedforward network are explored. This is contrasted with the equivalent standard layered approach to autoencoding. It is shown that such individualized processing is not detrimental and can improve network learning.

The predominant explanations for including chromosomal recombination during meiosis are that it serves as a mechanism for repair or as a mechanism for increased adaptability. However, neither gives a clear immediate selective advantage to the reproducing organism itself. This letter revisits the idea that sex emerged and is maintained because it enables a simple form of fitness landscape smoothing to explain why recombination evolved. Although recombination was originally included in the idea, as with the other explanations, no immediate benefit was identified. That a benefit exists if the dividing cell(s) form a simple colony of the resulting haploids for some time after reproduction is explored here and shown to further increase the benefits of the landscape smoothing process.

This letter uses a modified form of the NK model introduced to explore aspects of distributed control. In particular, a previous result suggesting the use of dynamically formed subgroups within the overall system can be more effective than global control is further explored. The conditions under which the beneficial distributed control emerges are more clearly identified, and the reason for the benefit over traditional global control is suggested as a generally applicable dropout mechanism to improve learning in such systems.

Sexual selection is a fundamental aspect of evolution for all eukaryotic organisms with mating types. This article suggests intersexual selection is best viewed as a mechanism with which to compensate for the unavoidable dynamics of coevolution between sexes that emerge with isogamy. Using the NKCS model it is shown by varying fitness landscape size, ruggedness, and connectedness, how a purely arbitrary trait preference sexual selection mechanism proves beneficial with high dependence between the sexes. This is found to be the case whether one or both sexes exploit such intersexual selection.

The significant role of dendritic processing within neuronal networks has become increasingly clear. This letter explores the effects of including a simple dendrite-inspired mechanism into neuro-evolution. The phenomenon of separate dendrite activation thresholds on connections is allowed to emerge under an evolutionary process. It is shown how such processing can be positively selected for, particularly for connections between the hidden and output layers, and increases performance.

This article suggests that the fundamental haploid-diploid cycle of eukaryotic sex exploits a rudimentary form of the Baldwin effect. With this explanation for the basic cycle, the other associated phenomena can be explained as evolution tuning the amount and frequency of learning experienced by an organism. Using the well-known NK model of fitness landscapes, it is shown that varying landscape ruggedness varies the benefit of the haploid-diploid cycle, whether based upon endomitosis or syngamy. The utility of pre-meiotic doubling and recombination during the cycle are also shown to vary with landscape ruggedness. This view is suggested as underpinning, rather than contradicting, many existing explanations for sex.

Design mining is the use of computational intelligence techniques to iteratively search and model the attribute space of physical objects evaluated directly through rapid prototyping to meet given objectives. It enables the exploitation of novel materials and processes without formal models or complex simulation. In this article, we focus upon the coevolutionary nature of the design process when it is decomposed into concurrent sub-design-threads due to the overall complexity of the task. Using an abstract, tunable model of coevolution, we consider strategies to sample subthread designs for whole-system testing and how best to construct and use surrogate models within the coevolutionary scenario. Drawing on our findings, we then describe the effective design of an array of six heterogeneous vertical-axis wind turbines.

The significant role of mitochondria within cells is becoming increasingly clear. This letter uses the NKCS model of coupled fitness landscapes to explore aspects of organelle-nucleus coevolution. The phenomenon of mitochondrial diversity is allowed to emerge under a simple intracellular evolutionary process, including varying the relative rate of evolution by the organelle. It is shown how the conditions for the maintenance of more than one genetic variant of mitochondria are similar to those previously suggested as needed for the original symbiotic origins of the relationship using the NKCS model.

This article describes research in which embodied imitation and behavioral adaptation are investigated in collective robotics. We model social learning in artificial agents with real robots. The robots are able to observe and learn each others' movement patterns using their on-board sensors only, so that imitation is embodied. We show that the variations that arise from embodiment allow certain behaviors that are better adapted to the process of imitation to emerge and evolve during multiple cycles of imitation. As these behaviors are more robust to uncertainties in the real robots' sensors and actuators, they can be learned by other members of the collective with higher fidelity. Three different types of learned-behavior memory have been experimentally tested to investigate the effect of memory capacity on the evolution of movement patterns, and results show that as the movement patterns evolve through multiple cycles of imitation, selection, and variation, the robots are able to, in a sense, agree on the structure of the behaviors that are imitated.

This article uses a recently presented abstract, tunable Boolean regulatory network model to further explore aspects of mobile DNA, such as transposons. The significant role of mobile DNA in the evolution of natural systems is becoming increasingly clear. This article shows how dynamically controlling network node connectivity and function via transposon-inspired mechanisms can be selected for to significant degrees under coupled regulatory network scenarios, including when such changes are heritable. Simple multicellular and coevolutionary versions of the model are considered.

This short article presents an abstract, tunable model of genomic structural change within the cell life cycle and explores its use with simulated evolution. A well-known Boolean model of genetic regulatory networks is extended to include changes in node connectivity based upon the current cell state to begin to capture some of the effects of transposable elements. The evolvability of such networks is explored using a version of the NK model of fitness landscapes with both synchronous and asynchronous updating. Structural dynamism is found to be selected for in nonstationary environments with both update schemes and subsequently shown capable of providing a mechanism for evolutionary innovation when such reorganizations are inherited. This is also found to be the case in stationary environments with asynchronous updating.

This article presents an abstract, tunable model containing two of the principal information-processing features of cells and explores its use with simulated evolution. The random Boolean model of genetic regulatory networks is extended to include a protein interaction network. The underlying behavior of the resulting two coupled dynamical networks is investigated before their evolvability is explored using a version of the NK model of fitness landscapes.

Symbiosis is the phenomenon in which organisms of different species live together in close association. Symbiogenesis is the name given to the process by which symbiotic partners combine and unify. This letter reconsiders previous work using the NKCS model of coevolution to explore symbiogenesis. In particular, the role of different replication rates between the coevolving partners is considered. This is shown to provide a broader scope for the emergence of endosymbioses and subsequent horizontal gene transfers.

We propose that the behavior of nonlinear media can be controlled automatically through evolutionary learning. By extension, forms of unconventional computing (viz., massively parallel nonlinear computers) can be realized by such an approach. In this initial study a light-sensitive subexcitable Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in which a checkerboard image, composed of cells of varying light intensity projected onto the surface of a thin silica gel impregnated with a catalyst and indicator, is controlled using a learning classifier system. Pulses of wave fragments are injected into the checkerboard grid, resulting in rich spatiotemporal behavior, and a learning classifier system is shown to be able to direct the fragments to an arbitrary position through dynamic control of the light intensity within each cell in both simulated and real chemical systems. Similarly, a learning classifier system is shown to be able to control the electrical stimulation of cultured neuronal networks so that they display elementary learning. Results indicate that the learned stimulation protocols identify seemingly fundamental properties of in vitro neuronal networks. Use of another learning scheme presented in the literature confirms that such fundamental behavioral characteristics of a given network must be considered in training experiments.

We investigate the performance of a learning classifier system in some simple multi-objective, multi-step maze problems, using both random and biased action-selection policies for exploration. Results show that the choice of action-selection policy can significantly affect the performance of the system in such environments. Further, this effect is directly related to population size, and we relate this finding to recent theoretical studies of learning classifier systems in single-step problems.

For artificial entities to achieve true autonomy and display complex lifelike behavior, they will need to exploit appropriate adaptable learning algorithms. In this context adaptability implies flexibility guided by the environment at any given time and an open-ended ability to learn appropriate behaviors. This article examines the use of constructivism-inspired mechanisms within a neural learning classifier system architecture that exploits parameter self-adaptation as an approach to realize such behavior. The system uses a rule structure in which each rule is represented by an artificial neural network. It is shown that appropriate internal rule complexity emerges during learning at a rate controlled by the learner and that the structure indicates underlying features of the task. Results are presented in simulated mazes before moving to a mobile robot platform.

Symbiosis is the phenomenon in which organisms of different species live together in close association, resulting in a raised level of fitness for one or more of the organisms. Symbiogenesis is the name given to the process by which symbiotic partners combine and unify, that is, become genetically linked, giving rise to new morphologies and physiologies evolutionarily more advanced than their constituents. The importance of this process in the evolution of complexity is now well established. Learning classifier systems are a machine learning technique that uses both evolutionary computing techniques and reinforcement learning to develop a population of cooperative rules to solve a given task. In this article we examine the use of symbiogenesis within the classifier system rule base to improve their performance. Results show that incorporating simple rule linkage does not give any benefits. The concept of (temporal) encapsulation is then added to the symbiotic rules and shown to improve performance in ambiguous/non-Markov environments.

In this article we examine the effects of the emergence of a new replicator, memes, on the evolution of a pre-existing replicator, genes. Using a version of the NKCS model we examine the effects of increasing the rate of meme evolution in relation to the rate of gene evolution, for various degrees of interdependence between the two replicators. That is, the effects of memes' (suggested) more rapid rate of evolution in comparison to that of genes is investigated using a tunable model of coevolution. It is found that, for almost any degree of interdependence between the two replicators, as the rate of meme evolution increases, a phase transition-like dynamic occurs under which memes have a significantly detrimental effect on the evolution of genes, quickly resulting in the cessation of effective gene evolution. Conversely, the memes experience a sharp increase in benefit from increasing their rate of evolution. We then examine the effects of enabling genes to reduce the percentage of gene-detrimental evolutionary steps taken by memes. Here a critical region emerges as the comparative rate of meme evolution increases, such that if genes cannot effectively select memes a high percentage of the time, they suffer from meme evolution as if they had almost no selective capability.

In this article the effects of altering the rate and amount of learning on the Baldwin effect are examined. Using a version of the abstract tunable NK model, it is shown that the adaptation process is sensitive to the rate of learning, particularly as the correlation of the underlying fitness landscape varies. Typically a high learning rate proves most beneficial as landscape correlation decreases. It is also shown that the amount of learning can have a significant effect on the adaptation process, where increased amounts of learning prove beneficial under higher learning rates on uncorrelated landscapes.

In this article versions of the abstract NKC model are used to examine the conditions under which two significant evolutionary phenomena—multicellularity and eusociality—are likely to occur and why. First, comparisons in evolutionary performance are made between simulations of unicellular organisms and very simple multicellular-like organisms, under varying conditions. The results show that such multicellularity without differentiation appears selectively neutral, but that differentiation to soma (nonreproductives) proves beneficial as the amount of epistasis in the fitness landscape increases. This is explained by considering mutations in the generation of daughter cells and their subsequent effect on the propagule's fitness. This is interpreted as a simple example of the Baldwin effect. Second, the correspondences between multicellularity and eusociality are highlighted, particularly that both contain individuals who do not reproduce. The same process is then used to explain the emergence of eusocial colonies.