abstract = "This study compares an adaptive and a non-adaptive
representation for finding long walks on obstructed
grids. This process models adaptation of a simple plant
to an environment where the plant's ability to grow is
impeded by obstructions such as resource poor areas
like bare rock. The intent of the adaptive
representation is to model the biological phenomenon of
phenotypic plasticity in which gene regulation is at
least partially in response to environmental cues, in
this case the obstructions. The adaptive representation
is found to have a substantial advantage, with the
greatest level of advantage at intermediate levels of
obstruction. Agents are asked to solve multiple problem
instances simultaneously (i.e. using the same
chromosome). The advantage of the adaptive
representation is also found to be higher when more
boards are used in fitness evaluation.",