Links
Here is a selection of EDA related links you may find useful. This list is also a reference point for myself, so will be updated regularly but as a consequence may be a little untidy.
Other EDA Research Groups / People
Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory - BOA, cGA and variants, as well as much background theory
Missouri Estimation of Distribution Algorithms Library
- directed by Martin Pelikan, creator of hBOA and several other algorithmsHeinz Muhlenbein, Fraunhofer Institute AiS - Developer of UMDA, BMDA and FDA algorithms
University of Essex - particularly interesting is their work on EDA and GA hybrids. Also, an excellent page of further links can be found here.
University of the Basque Country, Spain - mostly EDAs based on Bayesian networks, also adaptations of FDA using Markov networks and other models. Also home to Larraņaga and Lozano, editors of the reference book "Estimation of Distribution Algorithms. A New Tool for Evolutionary Optimization" (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002)
Dirk Thierens, Utrecht University - IDEAs and more recently models using Markov Chains
Alden Wright, University of Montana - linkage learning algorithms in GAs taken to EDA field
University of Tokyo - tutorial on EDAs
Institute of Cybernetics, Mathematics and Physics (ICIMAF)
Jonathan Shapiro, Manchester University
Tutorials and Background Reading
A Brief Introduction to Graphical Models and Bayesian Networks by Kevin Murphy, University of British Coloumbia - a good summary of graphical models of probability distributions. Mostly based around Bayesian networks, but some stuff is relevant to Markov models too.
The Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA)
A good book on MRFs can be found here
Numerical Recipes in C Support site for the book; a large number of useful mathematical functions ready-written in C++; visit the forum there for implementations in other languages. (SVD, one of the major components of our MRF based EDAs, is taken from this book)
Conferences featuring Evolutionary Algorithms
Other sites of interest
Huygens Probe Competition, CEC 2006