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NAME

       avida - Auto-adaptive genetic system for Artificial Life research

SYNOPSIS

       avida-viewer [options]

DESCRIPTION

       This  is  the  text-screen  viewer  for the Avida auto-adaptive genetic
       system.

       Avida is an auto-adaptive genetic system designed primarily for use  as
       a platform in Digital or Artificial Life research.  The Avida system is
       based on concepts similar to  those  employed  by  the  tierra  program
       developed  by  Tom Ray. In lay terms, Avida is a digital world in which
       simple computer programs mutate and evolve. More technically, it  is  a
       population  of  self-reproducing strings with a Turing-complete genetic
       basis subjected to Poisson-random mutations. The population  adapts  to
       the  combination  of an intrinsic fitness landscape (self-reproduction)
       and an externally imposed (extrinsic) fitness function provided by  the
       researcher.

       By  studying  this  system,  one  can  examine evolutionary adaptation,
       general traits of living systems (such as self-organization), and other
       issues  pertaining  to  theoretical or evolutionary biology and dynamic
       systems. The power of Avida is that it gives us a controllable  digital
       system  in  which to study the theories of evolutionary biology. Often,
       we can study elements of evolutionary  theory  that  are  difficult  or
       impossible in biological systems.

OPTIONS

       -g[enesis] <filename>
              Set genesis file to be <filename>

       -h[elp]
              Help on options (this listing)

       -e[vents]
              Print a list of all known events

       -s[eed] <value>
              Set random seed to <value>

       -viewer <value>
              Sets Viewer to <value>

       -v[ersion]
              Prints the version number

       -set <name> <value>
              Overide the genesis file

       -l[oad] <filename>
              Load a clone file

       -loadpop <filename>
              Load a saved population file (precedence over load)

       -a[nalyze]
              Process analyze.cfg instead of normal run.

USAGE

       Make  a  new  working directory for the experiment you want to run, and
       put the starting data in it. You can copy standard  starting  data  and
       modify it with:

       cp /usr/share/avida/* . -r

       You should run the program from inside that directory.

AUTHOR

       Avida  is  a  joint  project  of the Digital Life Laboratory, headed by
       Chris   Adami,   at   the   California    Institute    of    Technology
       (http://dllab.caltech.edu/)  and  Richard  Lenski’s Microbial Evolution
       laboratory at Michigan State university  (http://www.msu.edu/~lenski/).
       For more info on these groups or their research, please visit the links
       above.

       This manual page was written by Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es>, for
       the Debian project (but may be used by others).

SEE ALSO

       There  is a directory with some starting data you can use as a base for
       your research in /usr/share/doc/alive/data/.  You just have to copy the
       contents  of  that  directory  wherever  you  want  and  start  running
       avida-viewer there.  You can find HTML  documentation  about  avida  in
       /usr/share/doc/alive/html/.

                              noviembre 23, 2004                      AVIDA(1)