IEEE Transwactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics SMC-5, pp. 409-425

 John Holland's pioneering book Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems [1975, 2nd ed. 1992] showed how the evolutionary process can be applied to solve a wide variety of problems using a highly parallel technique that is now called the genetic algorithm. The genetic algorithm transforms a population of individual objects, each with an associated fitness value, into a new generation of the population using the Darwinian principle of reproduction and survival of the fittest and naturally occurring genetic operations such as crossover (recombination) and mutation. Each individual in the population represents a possible solution to a given problem. The genetic algorithm attempts to find a very good or best solution to the problem by genetically breeding the population of individuals. In preparing to use the conventional genetic algorithm operating on fixed-length character strings to solve a problem, the user must 1. determine the representation scheme, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press

See also Werbos, Paul J. (1994). The Roots of Backpropagation. From Ordered Derivatives to Neural Networks and Political Forecasting. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Rumelhart, David E.; Hinton, Geoffrey E., Williams, Ronald J. (8 October 1986). "Learning representations by back-propagating errors". Nature323 (6088): 533–536. doi:10.1038/323533a0.Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University.

In L. W. Gregg (Ed.), Knowledge and cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Artificial Intelligence 5:137-148.

NATO Advanced Study Institute an Computer Oriented Learning Processes, p. 15 pgs.

Operations Research, 21, 1071–1088.

Operations Research, 21 (2), 498-516.

Methods of Information in Medicine, 12: 45-51. Reprinted in Clancey & Shortliffe, Ch.2

This paper proposes a modular ACTOR architecture and definitional method for artificial intelligence that is conceptually based on a single kind of object: actors [or, if you will, virtual processors, activation frames, or streams]. The formalism makes no presuppositions about the representation of primitive data structures and control structures. Such structures can be programmed, micro-coded, or hard wired 1n a uniform modular fashion. In fact it is impossible to determine whether a given object is "really" represented as a list, a vector, a hash table, a function, or a process. The architecture will efficiently run the coming generation of PLANNER-like artificial intelligence languages including those requiring a high degree of parallelism. The efficiency is gained without loss of programming generality because it only makes certain actors more efficient; it does not change their behavioral characteristics. The architecture is general with respect to control structure and does not have or need goto, interrupt, or semaphore primitives. The formalism achieves the goals that the disallowed constructs are intended to achieve by other more structured methods.In IJCAI-73: THIRD INTERNATIONAL JOINT CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, 20-23 August 1973, Stanford University Stanford, California.