DREAMNapier University - Scotland

University of Dortmund - Germany

Ecole Polytechnique - France

Leiden University - The Netherlands

University of Granada - Spain

South Bank University - England

DREAM 2

People

• Ben Paechter Daniele Denaro

• Thomas BaeckMikePreuß

• Marc Schoenauer Pierre Collet

• Gusz Eiben Mark Jelasity

• JJ Merelo Maribel Arenas

• Terry Fogarty Ming Feng

DREAM 3

European CommissionUniversal Information Ecosystems

• “The Universal Information Ecosystems (UIE) proactive initiative is aimed at exploring and validating new technologies and scenarios that can turn the complex information infrastructure as it is emerging today into a rich, adaptive, responsive and truly open environment.”

DREAM 4

Infohabitants

Individuals, organisations, as well as virtual entities acting on their behalf, smart appliances, etc. could be denoted as "infohabitants" of a Universal Information Ecosystem.

Infohabitant:

Chromosome? Individual? Agent?

DREAM 5

DREAM

Distributed

Resource

Evolutionary

Algorithm

Machine

A virtual machine constructed using a number of simple machines connected over the internet, that allows infohabitants to evolve, communicate, negotiate and trade, in the pursuit of some individual goal, with the possible achievement of some global goal.

DREAM 6

DREAM Objectives - 1

To create the software infrastructure necessary to support evolving infohabitants in an open and scalable fashion, using existing Internet infrastructure and existing hardware resources

To unify evolution approaches, so that infohabitants can evolve using a number of complementary mechanisms

To allow meta-optimisation procedures, so that the algorithms for evolution themselves can be optimised by co-evolving a virtual world with the infohabitants it contains

DREAM 7

DREAM Objectives - 2

To create the software infrastructure necessary to support the emergent virtual economy that will result from the implementation of virtual machine onto physical resources

To demonstrate the usefulness of the infrastructure by using it to implement three applications which can make full use of it

Optimisation - Scheduling

Modelling - Data Mining

Simulation - economic and social systems

DREAM 8

Innovation

A framework in which to develop instantiations of applications, rather than having the models or problems hard-coded into it, which allows:

the solution of industrial optimisation problems and the simulation of the behaviour of large systems

free migration of infohabitants through the internet, thus allowing the formation of diverse niches

the use of spare CPU cycles in an automated and secure manner

behaviour at the macro level to be observed scalability and openness

DREAM 9

Virtual Level

DREAM A

Experiment 1

Experiment 3

Experiment 2

Any number of experiments may exist at the same time on one DREAM

DREAM 10

Virtual Level

• Problems can be tackled in an adaptive fashion• Individual infohabitants or sub-population can

compete - giving quality pressures• Possibility for co-operation, negotiation or trade• This will lead to a collective intelligence that divides

the problem at hand and allows infohabitants to generate a solution jointly

• In addition, a virtual society can be set up to simulate aspects of real society

DREAM 11

DREAM Evolution

• The system will be designed to include at least all the existing systems for evolution (Genetic Algorithms, Evolution Strategies, Evolutionary Programming, Genetic Programming, etc.) and will unify these

• Meta-evolution procedures will be allowed, so that algorithms for evolution can be optimised by co-evolving a virtual world with the inhabitants in contains

DREAM 12

Standard Island Model EA

• Individual :• genome

• Each island implements a local EA :• Infohabitants selection,• Reproduction / mutation, • Evaluation,

• Individuals are migrated periodically (distribution).

DREAM 13

Extensions to Island Model

• Simulator for human societies.• Emergence of economic and social aspects.• Evaluation of given policy and design of new

policies (inverse pb).

The standard algorithm must be enriched.

DREAM 14

• Local economy based on ACUs (Activation Currency Unit)

• Individual :

• Each island implements a specific local EA :• Several ACUs per infohabitant.• Selection of parents + Reproduction / variation,• N ACUs per newborn,• Activation of infohabitants (fixed tax),• Reward,• Selection (poor infohabitants die).

+ “Governmental” activities (island policy, migration management, environmental tasks (library), creation of new islands, …)

Proposed algorithm

•genome•“brain”

•UID•purse

•Other personal methods

DREAM 15

Possible activities for infohabitants

Evaluation Migration Communication:

With the island (queries on island policy, on other islands,…)

(1-1 / 1-n),

Reproduction (cloning). Variation (mutation,

recombination …). ACUs management:

– Borrowing (w or w/o interests)– Lending (w or w/o interests)– Trade (sell / buy)

Whenever activated, the brain decides of the action to take. Each activity has a cost possible emergence of an economy. Communication possible emergence of social aspects.

DREAM 16

• Mono-ACU local economy.• Individual :

Each island implements a specific local EA :• 1 ACU per infohabitant.• Selection of parents + Reproduction / variation,• 1 ACU per newborn,• Activation of infohabitants = evaluation (fixed tax of 1 ACU),• Reward with at most 1 ACU (selection by the island),• Garbage collection (poor infohabitants die).

+ governmental migration …

Downgraded Algorithm

•genome•“brain ”

•UID•purse

•Other personal methods

DREAM 17

Physical Level

• A DREAM may use any number of physical machines

• A physical machine could run more than one DREAM

• The DREAM will not interfere with the other functions of the machine

• It will use only the CPU time allocated to it - normally just spare CPU time

• Physical machines could be co-located, or spread world-wide

• Allows much more efficient use of resources

DREAM A

DREAM B

DREAM 18

Structure

• Usually (if there are enough machines) there will be one island per machine.

• An island cannot be split between machines• Islands can cause new islands to exist on

some machine• Each machine will know about at least some

other machines• The machines will form a connected graph

(hopefully and usually)

DREAM 19

Interacting with the DREAM

• To start an experiment a user must connect their machine to the DREAM as a console.

• To monitor or control an experiment the console machine (or some other acting as the console) must be connected.

• If the console has been unconnected then there may be delay between connecting and the time when each of the machines knows the console is there.

DREAM 20

Sharing of Resources

• How resources should be shared is a difficult problem.

• Should someone giving more resources be able to use more resources?

• The DREAM will allow the collection of resource provision and use data, and the implementation of distribution policies.

• The distribution policy itself will be left to the DREAM administrators to decide.

DREAM 21

Implementation

• Using Java

• On Linux and Windows Operating Systems

• Probably using an existing open source agent based system as the basis

DREAM 22

DREAM-User Interface

Good interfaces to such a complex system are vital.• Input interface: Will allow the definition of the

characteristics of the target experiment, and the kind of infohabitants that will evolve in that world. Specifying experiments and infohabitants through graphical manipulation will be possible

• Output interface: Will allow the graphical monitoring of observables at the infohabitant, island and experiment level

DREAM 23

Conclusions• A general framework will be built that will allow the

building of DREAMs and the specification of experiments to run on those DREAMs with the minimum of effort

• The framework will unify the different approaches to evolutionary computing

• There will be a much more efficient use of resources

• New functionality will (we hope) lead to new emergent behaviour

DREAM 24

The End

• Slides after this point are not part of the presentation but just filed here in cases they are needed!

DREAM 25

Proof of Principle

The usefulness of the framework will be tested by building three proof-of-principle applications using it:

• Optimisation: Distributed Human Resource Scheduling• Modelling: Distributed Data Mining• Simulation: E.g. Road Traffic Balancing, Tax/Welfare Policy -

Both direct and inverse problem

DREAM 26

Software

Each computer within a DREAM will have either the DREAM master software module or the smaller slave module which doesn’t allow user interaction. Each computer will also have a software module for each experiment it is participating in. Not all computers will participate in each experiment because, for example, an experiment module may not exist for each platform.

Master Module

Slave Module

Master Module

Exp 1 Module

Exp 1 Module

Exp 1 Module

Exp 2 Module

Exp 2 Module

Owns Exp 1

Owns Exp 2

DREAM 27

Project TimetableWhole Project % 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

WP1 – Prototype Construction 91.7

WP2 – Economic and Social Behaviour 30

WP3 – Distributed Data Mining 20

WP4 – Distributed Scheduling 23.3

9.2WP5 – Evaluation and Redesign 73.3

9.2

WP6 – Documentation, Dissemination andExploitation

82..5

WP 7 – Project Co-ordination 8.3

DREAM 28

Conclusion

• Standard EA are still allowed (downgraded mode)

• The DREAM seems to be able to implement all WorkPackages.

DREAM 29

Commission Funding Structure

• Information Society Technologies• Future and Emerging Technologies

• Proactive Initiatives– Quantum information processing and communication– Nanotechnology information devices– Universal Information Ecosystems

DREAM 30

UIE Features

Openness and Universality Scalable Timeliness and relevance Adapting to changing conditions Realising objectives and intentions

DREAM 31

The Partners

• Napier University - Ben Paechter

• University of Dortmund - Thomas Baeck

• Ecole Polytechnique - Marc Schoenauer

• Leiden University - Gusz Eiben

• University of Granada - JJ Merelo

• South Bank University - Terry Fogarty

Project is worth 1,106,000 euros over three years

DREAM 32

• Infohabitants will use hardware resources owned by someone other than the infohabitant’s owner

• People giving large amount of computer resources will want to be able to draw on these “banked resources” at some later time.

• An economy based on the raw material of computer resources will emerge

• Infohabitants may use this currency is their interactions

• Relationships between the economic wealth of an infohabitant and its fitness will be investigated

DREAM Economy