Computer Science | Grinnell College

Thursday, October 18, 2018
4:15 p.m. in Science 3821
Refreshments at 4:00 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Science 3817)

Myra B. Cohen, Lanh and Oanh Nguyen Endowed Chair of Software Engineering at Iowa State University, presents this Thursday Extra.

Software testing researchers have developed many sophisticated techniques to model and test complex and highly configurable systems. These techniques need to be automated and scalable to work on modern software applications, which has led researchers to use bio-inspired approaches that mimic nature, such as evolutionary algorithms. While this research continues to advance the state of the art in software testing, there is a bigger opportunity to leverage what has been learned outside of the boundaries of software testing.

Cohen will discuss some of her research on software testing and then show how they have used techniques built for software testing on living systems. Her recent work flips the nature-inspired paradigm for assurance and prediction of both natural and synthetically engineered biological organisms.

This Friday at CS Table, we will consider some basic issues in Evolutionary Art, art which is generated by genetic-like processes. Our reading this week is

Lewis, Matthew (2008). Evolutionary Visual Art and Design. In Romero and Machado (eds.) The Art of Artificial Evolution: A Handbook of Evolutionary Art and Music. Read the first few sections.

This chapter presents an introduction to the different artistic design domains that make use of interactive evolutionary design approaches, the techniques they use, and many of the challenges arising. After a brief introduction to concepts and terminology common to most artificial genetic design, there is a survey of artistic evolutionary systems and related research for evolving images and forms.

If you've not previously encountered evolutionary art before, you might want to look at http://electricsheep.org/, one of the more popular evolutionary art projects.

Computer science table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays from 12:10-12:50 in the Day PDR (JRC 224A). Contact Sam Rebelsky for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.