An Adaptive Multipopulation Differential Evolution With Dynamic Population Reduction.

Developing efficient evolutionary algorithms attracts many researchers due to the existence of optimization problems in numerous real-world applications. A new differential evolution algorithm, sTDE-dR, is proposed to improve the search quality, avoid premature convergence, and stagnation. The population is clustered in multiple tribes and utilizes an ensemble of different mutation and crossover strategies. In this algorithm, a competitive success-based scheme is introduced to determine the life cycle of each tribe and its participation ratio for the next generation. In each tribe, a different adaptive scheme is used to control the scaling factor and crossover rate. The mean success of each subgroup is used to calculate the ratio of its participation for the next generation. This guarantees that successful tribes with the best adaptive schemes are only the ones that guide the search toward the optimal solution. The population size is dynamically reduced using a dynamic reduction method. Comprehensive comparison of the proposed heuristic over a challenging set of benchmarks from the CEC2014 real parameter single objective competition against several state-of-the-art algorithms is performed. The results affirm robustness of the proposed approach compared to other state-of-the-art algorithms.

A 9,000-year-old caribou hunting structure beneath Lake Huron.

Some of the most pivotal questions in human history necessitate the investigation of archaeological sites that are now under water. Nine thousand years ago, the Alpena-Amberley Ridge (AAR) beneath modern Lake Huron was a dry land corridor that connected northeast Michigan to southern Ontario. The newly discovered Drop 45 Drive Lane is the most complex hunting structure found to date beneath the Great Lakes. The site and its associated artifacts provide unprecedented insight into the social and seasonal organization of prehistoric caribou hunting. When combined with environmental and simulation studies, it is suggested that distinctly different seasonal strategies were used by early hunters on the AAR, with autumn hunting being carried out by small groups, and spring hunts being conducted by larger groups of cooperating hunters.

Implications of new petrographic analysis for the Olmec "mother culture" model.

Petrographic analysis of Formative Mexican ceramics by J. B. Stoltman et al. (see the companion piece in this issue of PNAS) refutes a recent model of Olmec "one-way" trade. In this paper, we address the model's more fundamental problems of sampling bias, anthropological implausibility, and logical non sequiturs. No bridging argument exists to link motifs on pottery to the social, political, and religious institutions of the Olmec. In addition, the model of unreciprocated exchange is implausible, given everything that the anthropological and ethnohistoric records tell us about non-Western societies of that general sociopolitical level.