Assignment 2
Jacob Hyatt
                                               #
                                                 COSC, Brock University
                                                    1
                                                      jh16gc@brocku.ca 
                                                               
                                                                                         V. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
                       I. INTRODUCTION                                 FOR BOTH CIPHERS PROVIDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT PDF, A CROSSOVER
  This document describes correlations between                         RATE OF100% AND MUTATION RATE OF 0%, A CROSSOVER RATE OF
different parameters and how they affect the output                    100% AND A MUTATION RATE OF 10%, A CROSSOVER RATE OF 90%
                                                                        AND A MUTATION RATE OF 0%, A CROSSOVER RATE OF 90%, AND
of a Genetic algorithm that aims to find a cipher key
                                                                       MUTATION RATE OF 10%, WERE ALL TESTED ALONG WITH A CUSTOM
in different lengths of ciphers and lengths of                             SET OF 50% CROSSOVER RATE AND A 5% MUTATION RATE.
chromosomes/keys.
                                                                                               VI. RESULTS
                          II. PROBLEM
   The problem with this specific problem is that the
parameters and how they affect the final fitness is                              VII.     DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
slightly random which means that finding the
                                                                          FINDINGS OF THE FIRST CIPHER WHICH USED A KEY/CHROMOSOME
optimal parameters is difficult without testing                                          SIZE OF 26 FOUND RESULTS OF:
multiple parameters with a variety of problems.
                         III. SOLUTIONS
  With optimal solutions this can help find
parameters that are on average the optimal solution
which then can be carried to other related problems.
                       IV. BACKGROUND
THE PROGRAM FOLLOWS THE TYPICAL SETUP OF A GENETIC
ALGORITHM. TOURNAMENT SELECTION IS DONE WITH A POPULATION
SIZE OF 5 IN WHICH IT SELECTS 5 RANDOM INDIVIDUALS FROM THE
CURRENT POPULATION AND FINDS THE FITTEST OF THE 5 AS THE                                  (100% UF, 0% MR)
WINNER. CROSSOVER IS DONE WITH A SIMPLE 1 POINT CROSSOVER
LOOPING OVER THE CHROMOSOMES AND USING THE CROSSOVER RATE AS           Found that evolution peaked and took long to find evolve to
THE CHANCE OF WHAT PARENT CHROMOSOME IS TO BE TAKEN FOR THE                                    next solution
CHILD.
MUTATION FUNCTION IS SIMPLY USING THE MUTATION RATE FOR A
PERCENTAGE CHANCE OF A CHROMOSOME TO BECOME A RANDOM
CHARACTER.
ELITISM IS USED BY PLACING THE BEST INDIVIDUAL AT INDEX 0 OF THE
POPULATION ARRAY AND STARTING AT INDEX 1 WHEN LOOPING/EDITING
THE POPULATION TO PREVENT EDITING OF THE ELITE.
                   (100% UR, 10% MR)                            MINIMUM FINAL FITNESS
       Found that the fitness found a best of 0.2638            MINIMUM FITNESS OF CIPHER ONE WAS RECORDED AT 0.1648991
                                                                WHILE THE MINIMUM FITNESS OF CIPHER TWO WAS 0.3786434
   FINDINGS OF THE SECOND CIPHER FOUND THAT THE FITNESS WAS
   GREATER THAN THE FIRST CIPHER, WHICH IS EXPECTED SINCE THE   MAXIMUM FINAL FITNESS
      POPULATION REMAINED THE SAME WHILE THE SIZE OF THE
                     KEY/CIPHER INCREASED.                      MAX FITNESS OF CIPHER ONE WAS RECORDED AT 0.6944101 WHILE
                                                                THE MAX OF THE SECOND CIPHER WAS RECORDED AT 0.6978943
                                                                ANALYSIS
                                                                           THE RELATIONS OF 0% MR SEEMS TO POINT THAT THE
                                                                CROSSOVER FUNCTION CAN BE IMPROVED UPON WITH A DIFFERENT
                                                                CROSSOVER FUNCTIONS SUCH AS   3 POINT CROSSOVER OR UNIFORM 2
                                                                POINT.
                                                                100% UR ALONG WITH 10% MR SEEMED TO FOLLOW THE SAME
                                                                GENERAL PATTERN WITH BOTH CIPHERS EXCEPT WITH THE SECOND
                                                                CIPHER IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THE FITNESS TAKES A STEADIER CURVE
                                                                WHICH IS EXPLAINED SINCE THE SECOND CIPHER HAS A WIDER RANGE OF
                   (100% UR, 10% MR)                            CHARACTERS TO BETTER TEST FITNESS.
Found that the fitness evolved but started peaking at 0.467
                                                                              VIII.     DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
                                                                   EXPERIMENTS INCLUDE TESTING OF SEVERAL DIFFERENT UNIFORM
                                                                   RATES AND MUTATION RATES, WHERE FINDINGS FOUND THAT
                                                                   HAVING A HIGHER MUTATION RATE MAY HAVE A CHANCE AT
                                                                   GETTING THE FITNESS OUT OF A PLATEAU THIS ALSO MEANS THAT
                                                                   YOU NEED TO CREATE A LARGER POPULATION SINCE IT WILL MOST
                                                                   LIKELY TAKE LONGER TO FIND A PROPER CHROMOSOME THAT
                                                                   INCREASES FITNESS.
                                                                   MY FINDINGS WITH EXPERIMENTS AT 0% MUTATION RATE HAS
                                                                   CONCLUDED THAT A STRONG CROSS OVER FUNCTION IS VITAL IN
                    (50% UR, 5% MR)                                EVOLVING THE FITNESS WITHOUT RELYING ON MUTATION.
Found the fitness evolved further although still flattened at
                             0.37
                                                                                            REFERENCES