The role of virus infection in virus-evolutionary genetic algorithm

This paper deals with a genetic algorithm based on virus theory of evolution (VEGA). The VEGA realizes horizontal propagation and vertical inheritance of genetic information in a population with virus infection operators and genetic operators. The main operator of the VEGA is the reverse transcription operator, which plays the roles of a cross over and a selection simultaneously. The convergence and genetic diversity of the VEGA depend on the frequency of the virus infection. We apply the VEGA to a travelling salesman problem, a knapsack problem, and function optimization problems, and discuss the effectiveness of the virus infection through the numerical simulation.