An evolutionary approach to the delineation of functional areas based on travel-to-work flows

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labor markets based on evolutionary computation. The aim of the exercise is the division of a given territory into functional regions based on travel-to-work flows. Such regions are defined so that a high degree of inter-regional separation and of intra-regional integration in both cases in terms of commuting flows is guaranteed. Additional requirements include the absence of overlap between delineated regions and the exhaustive coverage of the whole territory. The procedure is based on the maximization of a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. In the experimentation stage, two variations of the fitness function are used, and the process is also applied as a final stage for the optimization of the results from one of the most successful existing methods, which are used by the British authorities for the delineation of travel-to-work areas (TTWAs). The empirical exercise is conducted using real data for a sufficiently large territory that is considered to be representative given the density and variety of travel-to-work patterns that it embraces. The paper includes the quantitative comparison with alternative traditional methods, the assessment of the performance of the set of operators which has been specifically designed to handle the regionalization problem and the evaluation of the convergence process. The robustness of the solutions, something crucial in a research and policy-making context, is also discussed in the paper.

The Complex Unified Evolutionary Approach to the Creation of the Multilevel Distributed Control System of a Gas-transport Company

The objects of a large-scale gas-transport company (GTC) suggest a complex unified evolutionary approach, which covers basic building concepts, up-to-date technologies, models, methods and means that are used in the phases of design, adoption, maintenance and development of the multilevel automated distributed control systems (ADCS).. As a single methodological basis of the suggested approach three basic Concepts, which contain the basic methodological principles and conceptual provisions on the creation of distributed control systems, were worked out: systems of the lower level (ACS of the technological processes based on up-to-date SCADA), of the middle level (ACS of the operative-dispatch production control based on MES-systems) and of the high level (business process control on the basis of complex automated systems ERP).

Winners and Losers in the Liberalized Energy Retail Sector in Hungary:A Co-evolutionary Approach

This paper examines the recent history of the Hungarian energy trading market in a co-evolutionary framework. Hungary is characterized by a mixed ownership structure with mainly multinational incumbents in energy retail and distribution, while the wholesale is dominantly owned by state-owned companies. The legal framework also has dual characteristics, with free-market regulation for industrial consumers and a regulated price regime for households. Our research method follows a longitudinal approach from the period of market liberalization in 2008 until 2013. We identified strong relationship between the individual and sector performance of the trading companies and the current political ideology and institutional regime.

Megtakarítási típusok - egy adaptív-evolúciós megközelítés = Types of saving - an adaptive-evolutionary approach

A közgazdaságtanban az ágensalapú modellezés egyik alkalmazási területe a makro ökonómia. Ebben a tanulmányban néhány népszerű megtakarítási szabály létét feltételezve adaptív-evolúciós megközelítésben endogén módon próbálunk következtetni e szabályok relatív életképességére. Három különböző típusú ágenst vezetünk be: egy prudens, egy rövidlátó és egy, a permanensjövedelem-elméletnek megfelelően működőt. Rendkívül erős szelekciós nyomás mellett a prudens típus egyértelműen kiszorítja a másik kettőt. A második legéletképesebbnek a rövidlátó típus tűnik, de már közepes szelekciós nyomásnál sem tűnik el egyik típus sem. Szokásos tőkehatékonyság mellett a prudens típus túlzott beruházási tendenciát visz a gazdaságba, és a gazdaság az aranykori megtakarítási rátánál magasabbat ér el. A hitelkorlátok oldása még nagyobb mértékű túlzott beruházáshoz vezethet, a hitelek mennyiségének növekedése mellett a tőketulajdonosok mintegy "kizsákmányoltatják" magukat azokkal, akiknek nincs tőkejövedelmük. A hosszú távú átlagos fogyasztás szempontjából a három típus kiegyensúlyozott aránya adja a legjobb eredményt, ugyanakkor ez jóval nagyobb ingadozással jár, mint amikor csak prudens típusú háztartások léteznek. ____ Agent-based modelling techniques have been employed for some time in macroeconomics. This paper tests some popular saving rules in an adaptive-evolutionary context of looking at their relative survival values. The three types are prudent, short-sighted, and responsive to the permanent-income hypothesis. It is found that where selection pressure is very high, only the prudent type persists. The second most resilient seems to be the short-sighted type, but all three coexist even at medium levels of selection pressure. When the efficiency of capital approaches the level usually assumed in macroeconomics, the prudent type drives the economy towards excessive accumulation of capital, i. e. a long-term savings rate that exceeds the golden rule. If credit constraints are relaxed, this tendency strengthens as credit grows and capital-owners seem to allow themselves to be exploited" by workers. From the angle of average consumption, the best outcome is obtained from a random distribution of types, although this is accompanied by higher volatility.

Developmental and evolutionary assumptions in a study about the impact of premature birth and low income on mother–infant interaction

In order to study the impact of premature birth and low income on mother–infant interaction, four Portuguese samples were gathered: full-term, middle-class (n=99); premature, middle-class (n=63); full-term, low income (n=22); and premature, low income (n=21). Infants were filmed in a free play situation with their mothers, and the results were scored using the CARE Index. By means of multinomial regression analysis, social economic status (SES) was found to be the best predictor of maternal sensitivity and infant cooperative behavior within a set of medical and social factors. Contrary to the expectations of the cumulative risk perspective, two factors of risk (premature birth together with low SES) were as negative for mother–infant interaction as low SES solely. In this study, as previous studies have shown, maternal sensitivity and infant cooperative behavior were highly correlated, as was maternal control with infant compliance. Our results further indicate that, when maternal lack of responsiveness is high, the infant displays passive behavior, whereas when the maternal lack of responsiveness is medium, the infant displays difficult behavior. Indeed, our findings suggest that, in these cases, the link between types of maternal and infant interactive behavior is more dependent on the degree of maternal lack of responsiveness than it is on birth status or SES. The results will be discussed under a developmental and evolutionary reasoning

Legal and political regulation of higher education in Portugal: an evolutionary perspective on the current policy issues and the problem of order

The higher education system in Europe is currently under stress and the debates over its reform and future are gaining momentum. Now that, for most countries, we are in a time for change, in the overall society and the whole education system, the legal and political dimensions have gained prominence, which has not been followed by a more integrative approach of the problem of order, its reform and the issue of regulation, beyond the typical static and classical cost-benefit analyses. The two classical approaches for studying (and for designing the policy measures of) the problem of the reform of the higher education system - the cost-benefit analysis and the legal scholarship description - have to be integrated. This is the argument of our paper that the very integration of economic and legal approaches, what Warren Samuels called the legal-economic nexus, is meaningful and necessary, especially if we want to address the problem of order (as formulated by Joseph Spengler) and the overall regulation of the system. On the one hand, and without neglecting the interest and insights gained from the cost-benefit analysis, or other approaches of value for money assessment, we will focus our study on the legal, social and political aspects of the regulation of the higher education system and its reform in Portugal. On the other hand, the economic and financial problems have to be taken into account, but in a more inclusive way with regard to the indirect and other socio-economic costs not contemplated in traditional or standard assessments of policies for the tertiary education sector. In the first section of the paper, we will discuss the theoretical and conceptual underpinning of our analysis, focusing on the evolutionary approach, the role of critical institutions, the legal-economic nexus and the problem of order. All these elements are related to the institutional tradition, from Veblen and Commons to Spengler and Samuels. The second section states the problem of regulation in the higher education system and the issue of policy formulation for tackling the problem. The current situation is clearly one of crisis with the expansion of the cohorts of young students coming to an end and the recurrent scandals in private institutions. In the last decade, after a protracted period of extension or expansion of the system, i. e., the continuous growth of students, universities and other institutions are competing harder to gain students and have seen their financial situation at risk. It seems that we are entering a period of radical uncertainty, higher competition and a new configuration that is slowly building up is the growth in intensity, which means upgrading the quality of the higher learning and getting more involvement in vocational training and life-long learning. With this change, and along with other deep ones in the Portuguese society and economy, the current regulation has shown signs of maladjustment. The third section consists of our conclusions on the current issue of regulation and policy challenge. First, we underline the importance of an evolutionary approach to a process of change that is essentially dynamic. A special attention will be given to the issues related to an evolutionary construe of policy analysis and formulation. Second, the integration of law and economics, through the notion of legal economic nexus, allows us to better define the issues of regulation and the concrete problems that the universities are facing. One aspect is the instability of the political measures regarding the public administration and on which the higher education system depends financially, legally and institutionally, to say the least. A corollary is the lack of clear strategy in the policy reforms. Third, our research criticizes several studies, such as the one made by the OECD in late 2006 for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, for being too static and neglecting fundamental aspects of regulation such as the logic of actors, groups and organizations who are major players in the system. Finally, simply changing the legal rules will not necessary per se change the behaviors that the authorities want to change. By this, we mean that it is not only remiss of the policy maker to ignore some of the critical issues of regulation, namely the continuous non-respect by academic management and administrative bodies of universities of the legal rules that were once promulgated. Changing the rules does not change the problem, especially without the necessary debates form the different relevant quarters that make up the higher education system. The issues of social interaction remain as intact. Our treatment of the matter will be organized in the following way. In the first section, the theoretical principles are developed in order to be able to study more adequately the higher education transformation with a modest evolutionary theory and a legal and economic nexus of the interactions of the system and the policy challenges. After describing, in the second section, the recent evolution and current working of the higher education in Portugal, we will analyze the legal framework and the current regulatory practices and problems in light of the theoretical framework adopted. We will end with some conclusions on the current problems of regulation and the policy measures that are discusses in recent years.

Evolutionary genomics and HIV restriction factors.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To provide updated insights into innate antiviral immunity and highlight prototypical evolutionary features of well characterized HIV restriction factors. RECENT FINDINGS: Recently, a new HIV restriction factor, Myxovirus resistance 2, has been discovered and the region/residue responsible for its activity identified using an evolutionary approach. Furthermore, IFI16, an innate immunity protein known to sense several viruses, has been shown to contribute to the defense to HIV-1 by causing cell death upon sensing HIV-1 DNA. SUMMARY: Restriction factors against HIV show characteristic signatures of positive selection. Different patterns of accelerated sequence evolution can distinguish antiviral strategies--offense or defence--as well as the level of specificity of the antiviral properties. Sequence analysis of primate orthologs of restriction factors serves to localize functional domains and sites responsible for antiviral action. We use recent discoveries to illustrate how evolutionary genomic analyses help identify new antiviral genes and their mechanisms of action.

Evolutionary simulations to detect functional lineage-specific genes.

MOTIVATION: Supporting the functionality of recent duplicate gene copies is usually difficult, owing to high sequence similarity between duplicate counterparts and shallow phylogenies, which hamper both the statistical and experimental inference. RESULTS: We developed an integrated evolutionary approach to identify functional duplicate gene copies and other lineage-specific genes. By repeatedly simulating neutral evolution, our method estimates the probability that an ORF was selectively conserved and is therefore likely to represent a bona fide coding region. In parallel, our method tests whether the accumulation of non-synonymous substitutions reveals signatures of selective constraint. We show that our approach has high power to identify functional lineage-specific genes using simulated and real data. For example, a coding region of average length (approximately 1400 bp), restricted to hominoids, can be predicted to be functional in approximately 94-100% of cases. Notably, the method may support functionality for instances where classical selection tests based on the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions fail to reveal signatures of selection. Our method is available as an automated tool, ReEVOLVER, which will also be useful to systematically detect functional lineage-specific genes of closely related species on a large scale. AVAILABILITY: ReEVOLVER is available at http://www.unil.ch/cig/page7858.html.

Biology Teachers'Conceptions of the Diversity of Life and the Historical Development of Evolutionary Concepts

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A survey of evolutionary algorithms for decision-tree induction

This paper presents a survey of evolutionary algorithms that are designed for decision-tree induction. In this context, most of the paper focuses on approaches that evolve decision trees as an alternate heuristics to the traditional top-down divide-and-conquer approach. Additionally, we present some alternative methods that make use of evolutionary algorithms to improve particular components of decision-tree classifiers. The paper's original contributions are the following. First, it provides an up-to-date overview that is fully focused on evolutionary algorithms and decision trees and does not concentrate on any specific evolutionary approach. Second, it provides a taxonomy, which addresses works that evolve decision trees and works that design decision-tree components by the use of evolutionary algorithms. Finally, a number of references are provided that describe applications of evolutionary algorithms for decision-tree induction in different domains. At the end of this paper, we address some important issues and open questions that can be the subject of future research.

A diversity dilemma in evolutionary markets

Markets are useful mechanisms for performing resource al- location in fully decentralised computational and other systems, since they can possess a range of desirable properties, such as efficiency, decentralisation, robustness and scalability. In this paper we investigate the behaviour of co-evolving evolutionary market agents as adaptive offer generators for sellers in a multi-attribute posted-offer market. We demonstrate that the evolutionary approach enables sellers to automatically position themselves in market niches, created by heterogeneous buyers. We find that a trade-off exists for the evolutionary sellers between maintaining high population diversity to facilitate movement between niches and low diversity to exploit the current niche and maximise cumulative payoff. We characterise the trade-off from the perspective of the system as a whole, and subsequently from that of an individual seller. Our results highlight a decision on risk aversion for resource providers, but crucially we show that rational self-interested sellers would not adopt the behaviour likely to lead to the ideal result from the system point of view.

Genetic Algorithm Approach for Solving the Task Assignment Problem

This research was partially supported by the Serbian Ministry of Science and Ecology under project 144007. The authors are grateful to Ivana Ljubić for help in testing and to Vladimir Filipović for useful suggestions and comments.

A Metaheuristic Approach to Solving the Generalized Vertex Cover Problem

AMS Subj. Classification: 90C27, 05C85, 90C59

Weak reasoning argumentative theory. A dialogical approach for the discovery of philosophy in high schools

In the literature on philosophical practices, despite the crucial role that argumentation plays in these activities, no specific argumentative theories have ever been proposed to assist the figure of the facilitator in conducting philosophical dialogue and to enhance student’s critical thinking skills. The dissertation starts from a cognitive perspective that challenges the classic Cartesian notion of rationality by focusing on limits and biases of human reasoning. An argumentative model (WRAT – Weak Reasoning Argumentative Theory) is then outlined in order to respond to the needs of philosophical dialogue. After justifying the claim that this learning activity, among other inductive methodologies, is the most suitable for critical thinking education, I inquired into the specific goal of ‘arguing’ within this context by means of the tools provided by Speech Act Theory: the speaker’s intention is to construct new knowledge by questioning her own and other’s beliefs. The model proposed has been theorized on this assumption, starting from which the goals, and, in turn, the related norms, have been pinpointed. In order to include all the epistemic attitudes required to accomplish the complex task of arguing in philosophical dialogue, I needed to integrate two opposed cognitive accounts, Dual Process Theory and Evolutionary Approach, that, although they provide incompatible descriptions of reasoning, can be integrated to provide a normative account of argumentation. The model, apart from offering a theoretical contribution to argumentation studies, is designed to be applied to the Italian educational system, in particular to classes in technical and professional high schools belonging to the newly created network Inventio. This initiative is one of the outcomes of the research project by the same name, which also includes an original Syllabus, research seminars, a monitoring action and publications focused on introducing philosophy, in the form of workshop activities, into technical and professional schools.