Grammar Defined Introns: An Investigation Into Grammars, Introns, and Bias in Grammatical Evolution

We describe an investigation into the design of different grammars on Grammatical Evolution. As part of this investigation we introduce introns using the grammar as a mechanism by which they may be incorporated into Grammatical Evolution. We establish that a bias exists towards certain production rules for each non-terminal in the grammar, and propose alternative mechanisms by which this bias may be altered either through the use of introns, or by changing the degeneracy of the genetic code. The benefits of introns for Grammatical Evolution are demonstrated experimentally.