Francisco Fernández de Vega

• Ph. D.
• Professor at University of Extremadura

Artificial Intelligence assisted music composition has gained popularity during the last decade, but still faces problems and difficulties. This paper approaches 4-part harmonization problem in the context of evolutionary computation, a topic that has been discussed for more than forty years but still represents an open challenge. This research pro...

This paper analyzes the difficulty of finding solutions for the 4-part harmony problem, both from the point of view of the size of the search space and the time required to run the algorithm. These considerations led to improved running time through parallelization, precalculation of the fitness function, and directed mutation, which reduces the ti...

Pattern recognition has been evolving to include problems posed by new sceneries containing a high number of pattern components . Processing this volume of information allows a more exact classification in wider types of applications; however, some of the difficulties of this scheme is the maintenance of numerical precision and mainly the reduction...

Enseñar a programar no es una tarea fácil, particularmente cuando se trabaja con grupos numerosos de alumnos. En los últimos años, los sistemas de aprendizaje electrónico han adquirido importancia, ya que transforman el uso de los contenidos, las técnicas de aprendizaje y la forma de interactuar de alumnos y profesores. El objetivo de este artículo...

Although the teaching of programming has evolved over 50 years, all methodologies rely on a simple structure that was born a long time ago: the loop, shared by all high-level programming languages, and the preferred choice for any repetitive task programmers face. We analyze here how “loops” skew the way programmers solve problems, and prevent them...

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are routinely applied to solve a large set of optimization problems. Traditionally, their performance in solving those problems is analyzed using the fitness quality and computing time, and the effect of evolutionary operators on both metrics is routinely used to compare different versions of EAs. Nevertheless, scienti...

In object-oriented evolutionary testing, metaheuristics are employed to select or generate test data for object-oriented software. Techniques that analyse program structures are predominant among the panoply of studies available in current literature. For object-oriented evolutionary testing, the common objective is to reach some coverage criteria,...

El reconocimiento optico de partituras es un problema que forma parte del ambito OMR (Optical Music Recognition). La gran variedad de elementos presentes en una partitura, que incluye clave, compas, tempo, dinámica, articulación, repeticiones, además de las notas, duración y alteraciones, hacen de su reconocimiento optico un problema interesante en...

El reconocimiento óptico de partituras es un problema que forma parte del ámbito OMR (Optical Music Recognition). La gran variedad de elementos presentes en una partitura, que incluye clave, compas, tempo, dinámica, articulación, repeticiones, además de las notas, duración y alteraciones, hacen de su reconocimiento óptico un problema interesante en...

Llevar el control de la glucosa es una tarea compleja que las personas con diabetes suelen realizar por sí mismas. Una predicción precisa y oportuna es de vital importancia para tomar decisiones y recomendar acciones correctivas al paciente cuando el valor que va a tener la glucosa en sangre se encuentra fuera de un rango objetivo. Es crucial prede...

Face recognition has become a fundamental biometric tool that ensures identification of people. Besides a high computational cost, it constitutes an open problem for identifying faces under ideal conditions as well as those under general conditions. Though the advent of high memory and inexpensive computer technologies has made the implementation o...

Although evolutionary art has demonstrated its potential over the past two decades, based primarily on interactive versions of the evolutionary algorithm (IEAs), new implementations of the algorithm continue to be developed and applied both to produce works of art and to study computer-added creative processes. Recently, human artists have been ask...

This paper presents a new method with a set of desirable properties for multi-pitch estimation of piano recordings. We propose a framework based on a set of classifiers to analyze audio input and to identify piano notes present in a given audio signal. Our system’s classifiers are evolved using Cartesian genetic programming: we take advantage of Ca...

Evolutionary art has demonstrated its possibilities in the last two decades, based mainly on interactive versions of the evolutionary algorithm. New versions of the algorithms continue to be developed and applied, both to produce works of art and to study computer aided creative processes. However, when human artists are included in the algorithm,...

In this chapter we reflect about evolutionary art, past and present, and how best to evaluate it for positioning in the art world. A personal journey that went through Michigan State University’s Garage Lab, led to a series of projects at the intersection of arts and science. This has enabled me to reflect on the synergies between both areas from t...

The present and future of evolutionary algorithms depends on the proper use of modern parallel and distributed computing infrastructures. Although still sequential approaches dominate the landscape, available multi-core, many-core and distributed systems will make users and researchers to more frequently deploy parallel version of the algorithms. I...

The present and future of evolutionary algorithms depends on the proper use of modern parallel and distributed computing infrastructures. Although still sequential approaches dominate the landscape, available multi-core, many-core and distributed systems will make users and researchers to more frequently deploy parallel version of the algorithms. I...

When Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are applied to optimization problems, two main measures are taken into account to understand their performance: fitness quality and computing time. These two values are used to compare the performance of different versions of an algorithm, different parameter settings of a single algorithm or even compare a partic...

This paper presents a new way of measuring complexity in variable-size-chromosome-based evolutionary algorithms. Dealing with complexity is particularly useful when considering bloat in Genetic Programming. Instead of analyzing size growth, we focus on the time required for individuals’ fitness evaluations, which correlates with size. This way, we...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd European Conference on Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2020, held as part of Evo*2020, in Seville, Spain, in April 2020, co-located with the Evo*2020 events EuroGP, EvoMUSART and EvoCOP. The 44 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected...

This work presents a unique genetic programming (GP) approach that integrates a numerical local search method and a bloat-control mechanism to address some of the main issues with traditional GP. The former provides a directed search operator to work in conjunction with standard syntax operators that perform more exploration in design space, while...

This work presents a unique genetic programming (GP) approach that integrates a numerical local search method and a bloat-control mechanism within a distributed model for evolutionary algorithms known as EvoSpace. The first two elements provide a directed search operator and a way to control the growth of evolved models, while the latter is meant t...

The present and future of evolutionary algorithms depends on the proper use of modern parallel and distributed computing infrastructures. Although still sequential approaches dominate the landscape, available multi-core, many-core and distributed systems will make users and researchers to more frequently deploy parallel version of the algorithms. I...

La Artesanía es un medio de producción importante, que aporta valores socio-culturales y turísticos que necesitan de una adaptación a la sociedad contemporánea, en la que la convivencia con la innovación tecnológica puede ser más activa y provechosa. En el presente artículo se discierne sobre un estado de intenciones, dirigido a un ontológico parti...

This paper analyzes the perception by the audience of Evolutionary Works of Art which were produced by means of the unplugged evolutionary algorithm. The long term goal is to study if genetic operations applied by artists in an evolutionary art work are consistently understood by the audience visiting the art exhibit. Yet, we need to involve the au...

When trying to understand the nature of creativity in human beings, as a tool that fosters innovation and the capacity for rebirth, it is essential to dive deeply into oneself in order to generate new artistic orientations. The objective is to forge new paths in experiences, both past and those of this moment, in the world of visual art. To do so,...

The concept of Ephemeral Computing is an emergent topic that is currently consolidating among the research community. It includes computing systems where the nodes or the connectivity have an ephemeral and thus unpredictable nature. Although the capacity and computer power of small and medium devices (as smartphones or tablets) are increasing swift...

En este artículo se presenta un análisis preliminar de un modelo de operador de mutación dirigida para problemas con codificación binaria y sin epistasis. Esta versión del operador permite asociar una probabilidad de mutación a cada gen de cada individuo, proporcional a la influencia que ha tenido dicho gen sobre la calidad del individuo durante el...

The rise of the Internet involves the simultaneous growth of the number of images in it. This amount of images comprises roughly more than half of the Internet content. This situation poses an open problem: how to recognize images from their own analysis without the use of labels describing their content or the analysis of documents or pages where...

Ephemeral computing is a term that describes computing systems whose nodes or their connectivity have an ephemeral, heterogeneous and possibly also unpredictable nature. These properties will affect the functioning of distributed versions of computer algorithms. Such algorithms, which are usually straightforward extensions of sequential algorithms,...

In object-oriented evolutionary testing, metaheuristics are employed to select or generate test data for object-oriented software. Techniques that analyse program structures are predominant among the panoply of studies available in current literature. For object-oriented evolutionary testing, the common objective is to reach some coverage criteria,...

This paper presents and describes CGP4Matlab, a powerful toolbox that allows to run Cartesian Genetic Programming within MATLAB. This toolbox is particularly suited for signal processing and image processing problems. The implementation of CGP4Matlab, which can be freely downloaded, is described. Some encouraging results on the problem of pitch est...

When a music student begins training, one of the main problems encountered is the proper understanding of specific terms that teachers introduce as a way of analyzing the type of sound produced by the student. The goal of a music teacher is that their students improve the quality of the sound they are emitting, but not in all cases students underst...

This artistic project originated as an experiment undertaken to analyse the mental imagery the brain uses for the expression of emotions on a formal, conceptual and iconographic level. In the interest of understanding the nature of creativity in human beings as a tool that favours innovation and the ability to rediscover ourselves, it is considered...

During the last decades, energy consumption has become a topic of interest for algorithm designers, particularly when devoted to networked devices and mainly when handheld ones are involved. Moreover energy consumption has become a matter of paramount importance in nowadays environmentally conscious society. Although a number of studies are already...

This chapter proposes the use of a scalable platform to run a complex recommendation system. We focus on a system made up of several recommendation algorithms which are run as an offline process. This offline process generates user profiles that represent which algorithm should provide the recommendations to a given user and item, and will be combi...

The necessary intervention of humans in interactive evolutionary computational systems has inherent drawbacks arising from the very nature of the algorithms, namely the human fatigue caused by the interaction and the boredom arising when users evaluate a large number of artifacts. To tackle these issues, in this paper we propose a human-centered fr...

In this paper we present a new strategy for deploying massive runs of evolutionary algorithms with the well-known Evolutionary Computation Library (ECJ) tool, which we combine with the MapReduce model so as to allow the deployment of computing intensive runs of evolutionary algorithms on big data infrastructures. Moreover, by addressing a hard real...

It is increasingly common that computational devices with significant computing power are underexploited. Some of the reasons for that are due to frequent idle-time or to the low computational demand of the tasks they perform, either sporadically or in their regular duty. The exploitation of this (otherwise-wasted) computational power is a cost-eff...

Energy consumption is a matter of paramount importance in nowadays environmentally conscious society. It is also bound to be a crucial issue in light of the emergent computational environments arising from the pervasive use of networked handheld devices and wearables. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are ideally suited for this kind of environments du...

This paper describes initial steps towards allowing Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) researchers to easily deploy computing intensive runs of EAs on Big Data infrastructures. Although many proposals have already been described in the literature, and a number of new software tools have been implemented embodying parallel versions of EAs, we present her...

Evolutionary Algorithms have been frequently employed as a means for artistic creation and design, in which human artists guide the creative process, through aesthetic and conceptual evaluation, and computers are in charge of applying more repetitive genetic operations. The success of this interactive version of the evolutionary algorithm is well d...

This chapter discusses the inherent parallel nature of evolutionary algorithms, and the role this parallelism can take when implementing them on different hardware architectures. We show the interest in studying ephemeral behaviors that distributed computing resources may feature and some EA’s self-properties of interest, such as the fault-tolerant...

This paper is the guest editors message to the Special Issue on Parallel Evolutionary Algorithms on Grid and Cloud. Although this special issue includes extended version of selected papers presented at the last three EvoPar Conferences, the reviewing and selection process was made under a strict peer reviewing process and after a call for papers op...

This paper presents a new algorithm capable of improving the accuracy level of a laser pointer detector used within an interactive control device system. A genetic programming based approach has been employed to develop a focus of attention algorithm, which works cooperatively with a genetic fuzzy system. The idea is to improve the detection of las...

In this paper we face the problem of accurate location of a laser spot that is used as interaction system in real environments. The work presented is compared with previous approaches where different algorithms work with a single objective, using images that has been previously simplified to reduce computing time. Instead, the new approach presente...

IntroductionCreativity and intelligence are both terms that have been deeply studied for centuries but still generate debates. Scholars frequently relate both terms, establishing connections that allow us to understand the relationship between general intelligence and creativity. Both are considered required for addressing challenging problems, and...

This paper describes the methodology, architecture and features of the eCrash framework, a Java-based tool which employs Strongly-Typed Genetic Programming to automate the generation of test data for the structural unit testing of Object-Oriented programs. The application of Evolutionary Algorithms to Test Data generation is often referred to as Ev...

Computational devices with significant computing power are pervasive yet often under-exploited since they are frequently idle or performing non-demanding tasks. Exploiting this power can be a cost-effective solution for solving complex computational tasks. Device-wise, this computational power can some times comprise a stable, long-lasting availabi...

“Unplugging Evolutionary Algorithms: On the principles of creativity by means of Arti!cial Evolution” is an experiment of Research Group GEA, University of Extremadura. This project combines Artistic Expression and Computer Science by applying evolutionary algorithms in order to study the processes that influence artistic creation. We combine difer...

Understanding and emulating human creativity is a key factor when developing computer based algorithms devoted to art. This paper presents a new evolutionary approach to art and creativity aimed at comprehending human principles and motivations, behaviors and procedures from an evolutionary point of view. The results, and the collective artwork des...

In Object-Oriented Evolutionary Testing, metaheuristics are employed to select or generate Test Data for Object-Oriented software. The application of search-based strategies to the Software Testing of Object-Oriented Software is fairly recent and is yet to be investigated comprehensively; this article aims to explore, review and contextualize relev...

Recently, several Pool-based Evolutionary Algorithms (PEAs) have been proposed, that asynchronously distribute an evolutionary search among heterogeneous devices, using controlled nodes and nodes outside the local network, through web browsers or cloud services. In PEAs, the population is stored in a shared pool, while distributed processes called...

This paper tackles the design of scalable and fault-tolerant evolutionary algorithms computed on volunteer platforms. These platforms aggregate computational resources from contributors all around the world. Given that resources may join the system only for a limited period of time, the challenge of a volunteer-based evolutionary algorithm is to ta...

This paper presents a new step towards a hard goal: Establishing a stronger collaboration between the art world and the field of Evolutionary Algorithms, so that both can benefit. Two were the main reasons for pursuing this goal: On the one hand the aim of studying human creative processes that may allow in the future improving computer based creat...

In this paper the effect of node unavailability in algorithms using EvoSpace, a pool-based evolutionary algorithm, is assessed. EvoSpace is a framework for developing evolutionary algorithms (EAs) using heterogeneous and unreliable resources. It is based on Linda’s tuple space coordination model. The core elements of EvoSpace are a central reposito...

This paper presents an improvement to ECJ (Evolutionary Computation in Java), the popular evolutionary computation tool, which allows users to exploit distributed computational resources through the use of volunteer computing. In particular, the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) middleware is used to distribute ECJ client s...

Proceedings of EvoApplications 2014.

Resumen Este artículo presenta una aplicación no convencional de un Algoritmo Evolutivo con el objetivo de estudiar los procesos que influyen en la creación artística humana. Hemos extraído los principales compo-nentes de un algoritmo evolutivo y los hemos utilizado como un conjunto de reglas que deben ser seguidas por los artistas cuando crean art...

Resumen En este trabajo se presenta un nuevo enfoque basado en la técnica de Foco de Atención para la mejora de un sistema de control de entorno por medio de un puntero láser. Los punteros láser han sido utilizados como elementos de indicación en pantallas de proyección, pero nosotros hemos adaptado ese uso para sistemas de control de entornos. Est...

The eCrash tool employs Strongly-Typed Genetic Programming to automate the generation of test data for the structural unit testing of Object-Oriented Java programs. This paper depicts the results attained by utilising eCrash to generate test data for the classes of the Apache Ant project.

This paper introduces the application of a new GP based Focus of Attention technique capable of improving the ac-curacy level when using a Laser Pointer as an interactive device. Laser Pointers have been previously employed in combination with environment control systems as interac-tion devices, allowing users to send orders to devices. Accu-rate d...

Evolutionary art (EvoArt) encompasses a variety of research devoted to the development of evolutionary systems that can help produce artistic artifacts in an automated or semi-automated process. Given the difficulty of evaluating subjective artistic preferences, one of the main approaches used by EvoArt researchers is interactive evolution where us...

This paper presents an unconventional implemen-tation of an Evolutionary Algorithm with the aim of studying underlying processes influencing human artistic creation. Instead of encoding new software functions that may help Evolutionary Algorithms running on computers to emulate human creativity, we extract the main components of an Evolutionary Alg...

During the tools have been also influenced by this evolutionary fashion. In this paper, we give a broader view of the application of techniques inspired by nature to hardware design and parallel architectures problem solving. Our aim is to furnish an overview of the various bioinspired techniques based tools that have been used so far to solve the...

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) consume large amounts of computational resources, particularly when they are used to solve real-world problems that require complex fitness evaluations. Beside the lack of resources, scientists face another problem: the absence of the required expertise to adapt applications for parallel and distributed computing model...

This paper presents a collaborative-interactive evolutionary algorithm (C-IEA) that evolves artistic animations and is executed on the web. The application is called Fireworks, since the animations that are produced are similar to an elaborate fireworks display. The system is built using the EvoSpace platform for distributed and asynchronous evolut...

In this paper we present a distributed evolutionary algorithm that uses exclusively cloud services. This presents certain advantages, such as avoiding the acquisition of expensive resources, but at the same time presents the problem of choice between different services at different levels (infrastructure, platform, software) and, finally the actual...

Currently, a large number of computing systems and user applications are focused on distributed and collaborative models for heterogeneous devices, exploiting cloud-based approaches and social networking. However, such systems have not been fully exploited by the evolutionary computation community. This work is an attempt to bridge this gap, and in...

This paper presents EvoSpace, a Cloud service for the development of distributed evolutionary algorithms. EvoSpace is based on the tuple space model, an associatively addressed memory space shared by several processes. Remote clients, called EvoWorkers, connect to EvoSpace and periodically take a subset of individuals from the global population, pe...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2013, held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2013, colocated with the Evo* 2013 events EuroGP, EvoCOP, EvoBIO, and EvoMUSART. The 65 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 119 su...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2013, held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2013, colocated with the Evo* 2013 events EuroGP, EvoCOP, EvoBIO, and EvoMUSART. The 65 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 119 su...