Page 138 - 49A Field Guide to Genetic Programming

124 12 Applications

2004; Dempster and Jones, 2000; Dempster, Payne, Romahi, and Thompson,
2001). Pillay has used GP in social studies and teaching aids in education,
e.g. (Pillay, 2003). As well as trees (Koza, 1990), other types of GP have
been used in finance, e.g. (Nikolaev and Iba, 2002).
Since 1995 the International Conference on Computing in Economics
and Finance (CEF) has been held every year. It regularly attracts GP pa-
pers, many of which are on-line. In 2007 Brabazon and O’Neill established
the European Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Finance and Eco-
nomics (EvoFIN). EvoFIN is held with EuroGP.

12.6 Industrial Process Control

There is evidence that GP is frequently used in industrial process control,
although, of course, most industrialists have little time to spend on aca-
demic reporting. A notable exception is Dow Chemical, where a group has
been very active in publishing results (Castillo, Kordon, and Smits, 2006a;
Castillo, Kordon, Smits, Christenson, and Dickerson, 2006b; Jordaan, den
Doelder, and Smits, 2006; Kordon, Castillo, Smits, and Kotanchek, 2005;
Kotanchek et al., 2006; Mercure, Smits, and Kordon, 2001). Kordon (2006)
describes where industrial GP stands now and how it will progress.
Another active collaboration is that of Kovacic and Balic, who used GP
in the computer numerical control of industrial milling and cutting machin-
ery (Kovacic and Balic, 2003). The partnership of Deschaine and Francone
(Francone and Deschaine, 2004) is most famous for their use of Discipu-
lus (Foster, 2001) for detecting bomb fragments and unexploded ordnance
(Deschaine, 2006). Discipulus has also been used as an aid in the develop-
ment of control systems for rubbish incinerators (Deschaine, Patel, Guthrie,
Grimski, and Ades, 2001).
One of the earliest users of GP in control was Willis’ Chemical Engi-
neering group at Newcastle, which used GP to model flow in a plasticating
extruder (Willis, Hiden, and Montague, 1997a). Other GP applications in
the plastics industry include (Brezocnik, Balic, and Gusel, 2000). McKay,
Willis, Searson, and Montague (2000) also modelled extruding food. Sear-
son, Montague, and Willis (1998) modelled control of chemical reactions in
continuous stirred tank reactors. Marenbach (1998) investigated GP in the
control of biotech reactors. Willis, Hiden, Marenbach, McKay, and Mon-
tague (1997b) surveyed GP applications, including in the area of control.
Lewin, Lachman-Shalem, and Grosman (2006) and Dassau, Grosman,
and Lewin (2006) applied GP to the control of an integrated circuit fabrica-
tion plant. Domingos worked on simulations of nuclear reactors (PWRs to
be exact) to devise better ways of preventing xenon oscillations (Domingos,
Schirru, and Martinez, 2005). GP has also been used to identify the state
of a plant to be controlled (in order to decide which of various alternative