In the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms (GEAs), much theory and empirical study has been heaped upon operators and test problems, but problem representation has often been taken as given. This monograph breaks with this tradition and studies a number of critical elements of a theory of representations for GEAs and applies them to the empirical study of various important idealized test functions and problems of commercial import. The book considers basic concepts of representations, such as redundancy, scaling and locality and describes how GEAs'performance is influenced. Using the developed theory representations can be analyzed and designed in a theory-guided manner. The theoretical concepts are used as examples for efficiently solving integer optimization problems and network design problems. The results show that proper representations are crucial for GEAs'success.
Franz Rothlauf received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the University of Erlangen, Germany, a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and a Habilitation from the University of Mannheim, Germany, in 1997, 2001, and 2007, respectively.
Since 2007, he is chair of Information Systems at the University of Mainz. He has published more than 60 technical papers in the context of planning and optimization, evolutionary computation, e-business, and software engineering, co-edited several conference proceedings, and is author of the books "Representations for Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms" and "Design of Modern Heuristics".
His main research interests are the application of modern heuristics in planning and optimization systems. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Evolutionary Computation Journal (ECJ) and Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications (JAEA). Since 2007, he is member of the Executive Committee of ACM SIGEVO. He has been organizer of several workshops on heuristic optimization issues, chair of EvoWorkshops in 2005 and 2006, co-organizer of the European workshop series on "Evolutionary Computation in Communications, Networks, and Connected Systems", co-organizer of the European workshop series on "Evolutionary Computation in Transportation and Logistics", and co-chair of the program commitee of the GA track at GECCO 2006. He was conference chair of GECCO 2009. In 2011, he is Associate Chair for the "IS in Industrie und Unternehmensanwendungen" track in WI 2011.
