1X Crossover: the trivial case

Question

I've got a little question about 1X crossover. Do we have account for the possibilities that the breakpoint can be at the beginning or at the end (the trivial case)?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The Genetic Algorithm is quite robust. If you include a child as a copy of one parent in some cases it is similar to a lower crossover probability. I would not expect this little extra to have much of an impact if any at all. Still, if you are unsure you can implement both and try. But let me add that people also attempted to implement largely different crossovers and still with some of these the performance is similar. What we know from the design points of a good crossover is that the child should consist only of those alleles that are present in either one of the parents. So called unwanted mutations are to be avoided.

Answer 2

As pointed out by @seaotternerd, there is no hard and fast rule here.

The general practice however is that the selection of a crossover site is carried out by including only one of the two trivial cases; i.e. either the beginning or the end, but not both. This practice assumes importance in cases where the chromosomes are especially small as it allows for maximum variability without compromising on the principle of indifference.