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Last update: February 19, 2014

 

Karva Notation: The Native Code of GeneXproTools

Karva notation is used internally by GeneXproTools as it allows the compact encoding and rapid expression of complex models. And although very simple to understand, you don't actually have to know it in order to model with GeneXproTools, as all the code generated by GeneXproTools is automatically converted into the most commonly used programming languages (a total of 17 for math problems and 18 for logic circuits in GeneXproTools 5.0). But since it is so simple and so handy, we encourage you to learn about this representation so that you can benefit from some of the most advanced features of GeneXproTools.

Karva notation was developed specifically for Gene Expression Programming (GEP) and consists of a universal way of compactly representing any mathematical or logical expression that can be represented as a tree. Besides its compactness, this universal representation is also linear, and this is a fundamental characteristic for any system that has to breed mathematical expressions to create new, more useful ones.

The linear structures of GEP are called chromosomes and each chromosome contains one or more genes. And each gene is associated with its own K-expression ("K" or "Kappa" comes from Karva notation). Genes and K-expressions are very easy to decode. For example, the gene:

0123456
+/*abcd

can be represented as a diagram or expression tree (ET):

The translation of the gene into the corresponding ET is straightforward: The first element in the gene (position 0) corresponds to the root of the ET; then, below that node, are attached as many nodes as there are arguments to that function (two, in this case); then these nodes are filled consecutively with the elements in the gene (in this case, positions 1 and 2), and so forth. The process is repeated until a line composed of only terminals is formed (in this case, the third line).

More formally, both the gene and ET above can be represented by the mathematical expression:

Usually the genes evolved by GEP are more interesting than the gene presented above, not only with noncoding regions at their ends but also with more diverse branching structures. For example, consider the gene:

01234567890123456
Q/a*+b-cbabaccbac

where "Q" represents the square root function. This gene has a head (from position 0 through 7 and shown in blue) of length 8 and a tail (from position 8 through 16) of length 9. Note that the head contains both functions (which may take 1, 2,..., n arguments) and terminals (the variables and constants in a problem), whereas the tail contains exclusively terminals (the existence of a tail with a buffer of terminals is the breakthrough of GEP as it ensures that all the programs encoded in the genes are syntactically correct). The translation of such genes is done exactly as in the previous example, giving:

Note that, in this case, not all the elements in the gene were used to construct the ET, as the translation ends whenever a line containing only terminals is formed. In this particular case, the gene ends at position 16 whereas the K-expression ends at position 9.

Furthermore, GEP chromosomes are usually multigenic, and each gene codes for a sub-ET or sub-program. After translation, the sub-ETs are linked by a particular linking function: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, average, minimum, or maximum for all kinds of mathematical models in GeneXproTools 5.0 and And, Or, Nand, Nor, Xor, Nxor, Less Than, Greater Than, Less Or Equal, and Greater Or Equal for logical expressions.

For example, the following chromosome composed of three genes (position 0 indicates the beginning of each gene):

012345678012345678012345678
*aQ+abbaa/Q*/aababa*+Qaabba

encodes the following sub-ETs:

Then the sub-ETs are afterwards linked by one of the available linking functions. For instance, if the linking function were addition, then the following program would be obtained (the linking function is shown in gray):

Note that the ET above can be easily linearized into a single K-expression:

01234567890123456
++a*/aQQ*+/aaabba

These manipulations are important in order to fully explore all the features of GeneXproTools, especially the Change Seed method, which allows you to take an existing model, tinker (or not) with it a bit, and then use it to evolve even better models.


But unless you want to use extraneous models, you don't have to be fluent in Karva as all the models evolved by GeneXproTools in its native Karva code are automatically converted not only into a wide range of programming languages (Ada, C, C++, C#, Fortran, Java, Javascript, Matlab, Octave, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Visual Basic, VBA, VB.Net, Verilog, and VHDL) but also into diagram representations or expression trees for an immediate visualization of the model structure.







See Also:


Related Tutorials:


Related Videos:


References:

Ferreira, C., 2006. Gene Expression Programming: Mathematical Modeling by an Artificial Intelligence. 2nd Edition, Springer-Verlag, Germany.


Last modified: May 9, 2013


Cite this as:

Ferreira, C. "Karva Notation: The Native Code of GeneXproTools." From GeneXproTools Documentation – A Gepsoft Web Resource. http://www.gepsoft.com/GeneXproTools/KarvaNotationTheNativeCodeOfGeneXproTools.htm



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