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Algorithms
Tarundeep Singh Dhot
Dept of ECE
Concordia University
Montreal, QC H3G 1M8
Markov Chain theory offers a sound framework to understand and explore the
potential and behaviour of GAs. Since GAs move from generation to generation i.e.
through successive populations with each population dependent on the previous one, we
can represent a GA as a Markov Chain by letting the current state of the GA to be the
current population, as the current population depends only on the previous generation
which is analogous to the definition of a Markov Chain. The formulation of the transition
matrix which dictates how the GA moves from one state to the next is based on the
genetic operators (selection, recombination and mutation) used by the GA. The action of
recombination and mutation operators is purely a function of the probability of crossover
and mutation while the action of selection operator encompasses information about the
fitness function.
To sum it up, we see that GAs can be modelled using Markov models where
occurrence of each individual in the population can be regarded as a state of a Markov
model although the number of states is enormously large. Even though such modelling is
limited to cases problems with limited size of their transition matrix, but it is still seen as
a significant effort in developing a general theory as well as research in the field of
modelling GAs.