Study of fitness landscapes for the HP model of protein structure prediction

We present results from analyses of fitness landscapes of the HP model of protein structure prediction problems. The work concentrates on those issues that are likely to impact on the effectiveness of evolutionary search of those landscapes, such as massive multimodality, degeneracy, and the presence of large regions corresponding to physically infeasible solutions. In the light of previous researcher´s experience, and of our experimental results, we conclude by suggesting some characteristics that successful operators and parameters should possess.