Summary and Conclusions

Evolutionary design of experiments has been brought to a new level with the optimization needs of PACE.  State of the art algorithms have been developed and will continue in active use beyond PACE.


The optimization algorithms have not been applied throughout the experimental activity in PACE for a variety of reasons:


- application of these methods require sufficient experimental bandwidth to be effective, and many experimental efforts did not have the bandwidth.


- Applications within microfluidic devices suffered difficulties from uncontrolled long time-scale changes in the experimental conditions.  These must be either eliminated or incorporated into the optimization algorithm.


Notwithstanding the global application of these methods throughout PACE, these methods represent a concrete advance, and a specific new approach to design and programming of complex chemical systems.