Lee Graham
This presentation will give a brief explanation of a popular search method called a genetic algorithm (GA) and a combinatorial optimization problem called sorting networks, which has been of some interest to the computer science and engineering community for many decades. A simple method for the initialization of genetic algorithm populations for the sorting network problem is presented in which such networks are constructed with a kind of internal symmetry, making use of symmetric comparator pairs. This method, and several variations thereof, will be motivated and compared experimentally with a more standard initialization method to demonstrate their superiority both before and after the GA is run. An interesting but unexplained observation regarding the distribution of such networks will be presented as well.