abstract = "For theoretical analyses there are two specifics
distinguishing GP from many other areas of evolutionary
computation: the variable size representations, in
particular yielding a possible bloat (i.e. the growth
of individuals with redundant parts); and also the role
and the realization of crossover, which is particularly
central in GP due to the tree-based representation.
Whereas some theoretical work on GP has studied the
effects of bloat, crossover had surprisingly little
share in this work. We analyze a simple crossover
operator in combination with randomized local search,
where a preference for small solutions minimizes bloat
(lexicographic parsimony pressure); we denote the
resulting algorithm Concatenation Crossover GP. We
consider three variants of the well-studied Majority
test function, adding large plateaus in different ways
to the fitness landscape and thus giving a test bed for
analyzing the interplay of variation operators and
bloat control mechanisms in a setting with local
optima. We show that the Concatenation Crossover GP can
efficiently optimize these test functions, while local
search cannot be efficient for all three variants
independent of employing bloat control.",
notes = "Also known as \cite{KOTZING202096}
Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam,
Germany.",