Using genetic algorithms with sexual or asexual transposition: a comparative study

Presents the results obtained with a modified genetic algorithm (GA) which uses a biologically inspired mechanism called “transposition” as the main genetic operator. Previous work (Simo˜es & Costa, 1999, 2000) has already focused on the comparative analysis between the sexual and asexual forms of transposition and the standard crossover operators. This work completes the comparative study, presenting the results obtained by the GA when using the different transposition mechanisms. The comparative study analyzes the similarities and differences between sexual and asexual transposition concerning the GA´s efficiency and the choice of one important parameter: the flanking sequence length