Glossary
Genetic and evolutionary algorithms

Adaptation to the environment; fitness

Function optimized by an evolutionary algorithm, used within the selection operator. Also called "evaluation function" or "performance function." It does not need to be continuous or differentiable.

Evolutionary algorithm (EA)

Generic name for heuristics or stochastic optimization algorithms inspired by Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Distribution estimation algorithm; estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA)

Optimization heuristic operating on a continuous space (real numbers) and evolving a distribution representing the probability of finding the optimum in a given region. Successive populations are produced by sampling the distribution. The CMA-ES (covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy) algorithm belongs to this...