Evolutionary Computation Digest Sunday, January 2, 2010 Volume 25: Issue 1 SUBMISSION ADDRESS: [log in to unmask] LIST INFORMATION: http://ec-digest.research.ucf.edu/ OLD LIST ARCHIVE: http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/galist/ NEW LIST ARCHIVE: http://listserv.gmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=EC-DIGEST-L (UN)SUBSCRIPTION INSTRUCTIONS: at the bottom of this email ******************************************************************************** Today's Topics: ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------- - Book announcement: Experimental Methods for the Analysis of Optimization Alg. - GECCO-2011 SUBMISSION NOW OPEN - Evolving Objects C++ framework -- release 1.1.0 CFPs ---- - WORLDCOMP 2011 Congress - GECCO 2011 Competitions: Call for Participation - CFP for Matheuristic Session on ALIO/EURO Workshop - CEC 2011 Special Session on "Evo. of Developmental and Generative Systems - Call for Abstracts - EVOLVE 2011, Luxembourg ******************************************************************************** CALENDAR OF GA-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with EC-Digest issue reference) FOGA'11,Foundations of Gen. Alg. XI, Schwarzenberg, Austria, Jan 5-9 2011(v24n3) ACM-SAC11,26th ACM Symp Applied Comp EC Track,TaiChung Taiwan,Mar21-25'11(v24n7) IEEE SDE'11,IEEE Symp on Differential Evolution,Paris, France,Apr11-15'11(v24n6) ICANNGA'11,Intl Conf. on Adaptive and ...,Ljubljana, Slovenia,Apr14-16'11(v24n6) EVO*'11, The main European events on EC, Torino, Italy, April 27-29, 2011(v24n9) GECCO'11,Genetic and Evol Comp Conference, Dublin, Ireland,July 12-16 '11(v24n7) WORLDCOMP 2011 Congress, July 18-21, 2011, USA (v25n1) 2011 IEEE Congress on Evo. Computation, New Orleans, June 5-8, 2011 (v25n1) Call for Abstracts - EVOLVE 2011, Luxembourg, May 25-27, 2011 (v25n1) ******************************************************************************** Sender: Bartz-Beielstein <[log in to unmask] Subject: Experimental Methods for the Analysis of Optimization Algorithms Title: Experimental Methods for the Analysis of Optimization Algorithms Editors: Thomas Bartz-Beielstein, Marco Chiarandini, Luís Paquete and Mike Preuss Publisher: Springer Year: 2010 Pages: 457 ISBN: 978-3-642-02537-2 Online information: http://www.springer.com/978-3-642-02537-2 == About the Book == In operations research and computer science it is common practice to evaluate the performance of optimization algorithms on the basis of computational results, and the experimental approach should follow accepted principles that guarantee the reliability and reproducibility of results. However, computational experiments differ from those in other sciences, and the last decade has seen considerable methodological research devoted to understanding the particular features of such experiments and assessing the related statistical methods. This book consists of methodological contributions on different scenarios of experimental analysis. The first part overviews the main issues in the experimental analysis of algorithms, and discusses the experimental cycle of algorithm development; the second part treats the characterization by means of statistical distributions of algorithm performance in terms of solution quality, runtime and other measures; and the third part collects advanced methods from experimental design for configuring and tuning algorithms on a specific class of instances with the goal of using the least amount of experimentation. The contributor list includes leading scientists in algorithm design, statistical design, optimization and heuristics, and most chapters provide theoretical background and are enriched with case studies. This book is written for researchers and practitioners in operations research and computer science who wish to improve the experimental assessment of optimization algorithms and, consequently, their design. ******************************************************************************** Sender: Xavier Llorà <[log in to unmask]> Subject: GECCO-2011 SUBMISSION NOW OPEN 2011 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2011) July 12-16, 2011 (Wednesday-Sunday) Dublin, Ireland Organized by ACM SIGEVO *** SUBMISSION NOW OPEN *** https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/gecco http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011 http://twitter.com/GECCO2011 20th International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA) and the 16th Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP) One Conference - Many Mini-Conferences - 15 Program Tracks The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2011) will present the latest high-quality results in the growing field of genetic and evolutionary computation. Topics include: genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, real-world applications, learning classifier systems and other genetics-based machine learning, evolvable hardware, artificial life, adaptive behavior, ant colony optimization, swarm intelligence, biological applications, evolutionary robotics, coevolution, artificial immune systems, and more. IMPORTANT DATES * Submission deadline: January 26, 2011 * Notification of paper acceptance: March 23, 2011 * Camera-ready submission: April 18, 2011 * GECCO-2011 Conference: July 12-16, 2011 CONFERENCE FLYER * http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011/docs/CFP-GECCO-2011.pdf FREE TUTORIALS & WORKSHOPS Two days of free tutorials and workshops (included with conference registration) presented by some of the worldÕs foremost experts in topics of interest to genetic and evolutionary computation researchers and practitioners. HOW TO SUBMIT A PAPER TO GECCO * Meet the Submission Deadline: Wednesday, January 26, 2011. * Word and LaTeX templates: http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011/papers.html * Submission site: https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/gecco For detailed instructions, including categories, keywords, and formatting requirements, visit http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011. Be sure to check the web page for changes that may appear as the paper submission deadline approaches. GECCO allows submissions of material that is substantially similar to a paper being submitted contemporaneously for review in another conference. However, if the submitted paper is accepted by GECCO, the authors agree that substantially the same material will not be published by another conference in the evolutionary computation field. Material may be later revised and submitted to a journal, if permitted by the journal. REVIEW PROCESS Each paper submitted to GECCO will be rigorously reviewed, in a double-blind review process, meaning that reviewers should not be able to infer the identities of the authors of the papers under review, and, of course, that authors will not know the identities of their reviewers. Each submitted paper will be evaluated by one of at least 15 separate and independent program committees specializing in various aspects of genetic and evolutionary computation. These committees make their own final decisions on submitted papers for their areas, subject only to conference-wide space limitations and procedures. Review criteria include significance of the work, technical soundness, novelty, clarity, writing quality, and sufficiency of information to permit replication, if applicable. ACCEPT AUTHOR AGREEMENT By submitting a paper, the author(s) agree that, if their paper is accepted, they will: 1. Submit a final, revised, camera-ready version to the publisher by 2. Monday, April 18, 2011 3. Register at least one author to attend the conference by Monday, May 2, 2011 4. Attend the conference (at least one author) 5. Present the accepted paper at the conference VENUE Dublin is the lively capital of Ireland and the perfect GECCO destination. It is served by several low-cost airlines, offering a wide range of flight deals, and provides several accommodation options. The social event will take place at IrelandÕs No. 1 international visitor attraction, the Guinness Storehouse. More information at http://www.visitdublin.com MORE INFORMATION For more information about GECCO-2011 visit, * Website: http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011 * Twitter: http://twitter.com/gecco2011 * Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126064710759798 for information about deadlines, student travel grants, hotel reservations, student housing, the graduate student workshop, the latest list of topics, late-breaking papers, and more. For matters of science and program content, contact Conference Chair Pier Luca Lanzi at [log in to unmask] For general help and administrative matters contact GECCO support at [log in to unmask] CONTACT For technical matters, contact Conference Chair Pier Luca Lanzi at [log in to unmask] including "GECCO-2011" in the subject. ******************************************************************************** Sender: Johann Dréo <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Evolving Objects C++ framework -- release 1.1.0 After several years without a release, the EO team is proud to announce that a new version of the "Evolving Objects" framework is available. EO is a template-based, C++ evolutionary computation library which helps you to write your own stochastic optimization algorithms insanely fast. Learn more about EO on the official website: http://eodev.sourceforge.net/ You will find the release 1.1.0 at the following address: https://sourceforge.net/projects/eodev/files/eo/1.1.0/ Here is a summary of the change log: - massive documentation cleaning, now far more browsable! - provide cmake build system, remove the old autotools one - GCC 4.3 compatibility - new versatile log system with several nested verbose levels - an evaluator that throw an exception if a maximum evaluation numbers has been reached, independently of the number of generations - a new monitor that can write on any ostream - a new continuator that can catch POSIX system user signals - dual fitness class to handle feasibility of individual with guarantee that feasible fitness will always be better than unfeasible one - more statistics: feasible fitness ratio, fitness interquartile range, average size of individuals - new website, switch from CVS to GIT, and a cool logo! See a more detailed change log at: https://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=9775 Do not hesitate to submit the bugs you will face: https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/eodev/wiki/WikiStart ******************************************************************************** Sender: WORLDCOMP'11 Congress Conferences <[log in to unmask]> Subject: WORLDCOMP 2011 Congress, July 18-21, 2011, USA CALL FOR PAPERS Paper Submission Deadline: March 10, 2011 WORLDCOMP'11 The 2011 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing July 18-21, 2011, USA http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/ Location: See the above web site for venue/city You are invited to submit a full paper for consideration. All accepted papers will be published in the respective conference proceedings. The proceedings will be indexed in Inspec / IET / The Institute for Engineering & Technology, DBLP / Computer Science Bibliography, and others.) Like prior years, extended versions of selected papers will appear in journals and edited research books (book project proposals are being prepared for Springer, Elsevier, ...). WORLDCOMP'11 is composed of a number of tracks (joint-conferences, tutorials, workshops, and panel discussions); all will be held simultaneously, same location and dates: July 18-21, 2011. For the complete list of joint conferences, see below. IMPORTANT DATES: March 10, 2011: Submission of papers (about 5 to 7 pages) April 03, 2011: Notification of acceptance (+/- two days) April 24, 2011: Final papers + Copyright/Consent + Registration July 18-21, 2011: WORLDCOMP 2011 and all its affiliated conferences GENERAL INFORMATION: WORLDCOMP 2011 will be composed of research presentations, keynote lectures, invited presentations, tutorials, panel discussions, and poster presentations. To get a feeling about the conferences' atmosphere, see the 2010 delegates photos available at: www.pixagogo.com/1676934789 An important mission of WORLDCOMP is "Providing a unique platform for a diverse community of constituents composed of scholars, researchers, developers, educators, and practitioners. The Congress makes concerted effort to reach out to participants affiliated with diverse entities (such as: universities, institutions, corporations, government agencies, and research centers/labs) from all over the world. The congress also attempts to connect participants from institutions that have teaching as their main mission with those who are affiliated with institutions that have research as their main mission. The congress uses a quota system to achieve its institution and geography diversity objectives." One main goal of the congress is to assemble a spectrum of affiliated research conferences, workshops, and symposiums into a coordinated research meeting held in a common place at a common time. This model facilitates communication among researchers in different fields of computer science, computer engineering, and applied computing. The Congress also encourages multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research initiatives; ie, facilitating increased opportunities for cross-fertilization across sub-disciplines. LIST OF CONFERENCES: A full list of conferences (all of which occur at the same time and on the same date) can be found at: http://www.world-academy-of-science.org (Currently under construction.) SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Prospective authors are invited to submit their papers by uploading them to the evaluation web site at: http://world-comp.org Submissions must be uploaded by March 10, 2011 and they must be in either MS doc (but not docx) or pdf formats (about 5 to 7 pages - single space, font size of 10 to 12). All reasonable typesetting formats are acceptable (later, the authors of accepted papers will be asked to follow a particular typesetting format to prepare their final papers for publication.) Papers must not have been previously published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere. The first page of the paper should include: title of the paper, name, affiliation, postal address, and email address for each author. The first page should also identify the name of the Contact Author and a maximum of 5 topical keywords that would best represent the content of the paper. Finally, the name of the conference that the paper is being submitted for consideration must be stated on the first page. The length of the final/Camera-Ready papers (if accepted) will be limited to 7 (two-column IEEE style) pages. Each paper will be peer-reviewed by two experts in the field for originality, significance, clarity, impact, and soundness. In cases of contradictory recommendations, a member of the conference program committee will be charged to make the final decision (accept/reject) - often, this would involve seeking help from additional referees by using a double-blinded review process. In addition, all papers whose authors included a member of the conference program committee will be evaluated using the double-blinded review process. (Essay/philosophical papers will not be refereed but may be considered for discussion/panels). All proceedings of WORLDCOMP will be published and indexed in: Inspec / IET / The Institute for Engineering & Technology, DBLP / CS Bibliography, and others. ******************************************************************************** Sender: Xavier Llorà <[log in to unmask]> Subject: GECCO 2011 Competitions: Call for Participation GECCO-2011 Competitions: Call for Particiapation Deadline January 26, 2010 2011 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2011) July 12-16, Dublin, Ireland Organized by ACM SIGEVO 20th International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA) and the 16th Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP) One Conference - Many Mini-Conferencesa 15 Program Tracks GECCO 2011 offers a set of five competitions, each of which is posing a distinct challenge to the community. The following text gives an overview of the posed challenges, encouraging participation to each one of them. *** GPUs for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation *** The “GPUs for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation” competition challenges the community to improve the speed of their algorithms by means of GPU support. Criteria including the most innovative usage of the GPU power, the highest speedups achieved, as well as the utility of the algorithm for the broader community determine the winning entry. *** Visualizing Evolution *** The “Visualizing Evolution” competition focuses on tools that are capable of visualizing the functionality of evolutionary algorithms. The challenge is to produce visualization techniques that are maximally useful in making the functionality and current learning or optimization progress of the algorithm intellectually and/or educationally accessible. *** Evolutionary Art *** The “Evolutionary Art” competition asks for entries that expose the artistic potential of evolutionary algorithms. Being judged by a panel of artists and evolutionary computation experts, the challenge is to present algorithms that lead to the generation of art with a non- trivial evolutionary algorithm approach. *** Simulated Car Racing Championship *** The “Simulated Car Racing Championship” provides a racing car server-client architecture, which is platform and programming language independent. The challenge is to write a racing car controller that controls a car that can sense the track only with simulated sensors. Tools to optimize strategies on learn controllers from scratch are provided. *** Demolition Derby *** Finally, the “Demolition Derby” competition, while providing a platform similar to the SCRS competition, poses a very different challenge: The goal here is not to produce a fast controller, but a controller that generates behavioral strategies and maneuvers that tackle and crash other cars while avoiding being crashed themselves. Co-evolution approaches, policy-gradient mechanisms, as well as neuroevolution techniques (amongst others) are expected to be applied in this setting. Further information about the competitions can be found on the GECCO webpage. Participation is open to anybody. However, prices will only be given to teams that also participate at the conference. For detailed information about individual competitions, don’t hesitate to also contact the respective organizers directly! *** Important Dates*** GPUs for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation: June 1, 3011 Visualizing Evolution: June 15, 2011 Evolutionary Art: TBA Simulated Car Racing Championship: July 10, 2011 Demolition Derby: July 10, 2011 *** Submission guidelines and detailed information: **** http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2011/competitions.html ******************************************************************************** Sender: [log in to unmask] Subject: CFP for Matheuristic Session on ALIO/EURO Workshop Matheuritics Session VII ALIO/EURO Workshop on Applied Combinatorial Optimization Porto, Portugal, May 4 - 6, 2011 http://www.dcc.fc.up.pt/ALIO-EURO-2011 In the framework of the seventh conference on Combinatorial Optimization jointly organized by the Association of Latin-Iberoamerican Operational Research Societies (ALIO) and the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO), we are soliciting submissions to the special session on Matheuristics. Topics of interest include: • Model-based metaheuristics • Dual information and metaheuristics • Decompositions and lower/upper bounds in metaheuristic codes • Stochastic programming and heuristic search • MIP solvers as search components (local branching, RINS, ...) • Hybridizing heuristics and exact methods • Upper and lower bounds interacting evolutions • Real world case histories of successful metaheuristic applications Important Dates January 31, 2011 - Deadline for Abstract Submission. February 28, 2011 - Notification of acceptance. March 14, 2011 - Deadline for early registration and authors registration. May 4-6, 2011 - VII ALIO/EURO Workshop. Abstract Submission Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of 2 to 4 pages on A4-size paper. Please use the conference LaTeX template to prepare your abstract. Authors not familiar with LaTeX can use LyX. If you choose to use LyX, please use the LyX template. Extended abstract submission ends on January 31st, 2011. Notification of acceptance will be done by February 28th, 2011. For submitting, send the extended abstract in pdf or doc format to either (or both) of the session organizers: Antonio José Bolufé Röhler: [log in to unmask] Vittorio Maniezzo: [log in to unmask] ******************************************************************************** Sender: [log in to unmask] Subject: Call for Papers: CEC 2011 Special Session on "Evolution of Developmental and Generative Systems" Call for Papers 2011 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation New Orleans - June 5-8, 2011 Special Session on Evolution of Developmental and Generative Systems Special Session Organizers - Yaochu Jin, University of Surrey, UK - Andy Tyrrell, University of York, UK Motivation and Scope Computational modeling of biological development has received increasing interests in evolutionary computation, artificial life and computational systems biology. In the evolutionary computation community, evolutionary algorithms using an indirect coding or generative coding are believed to be more scalable in evolving highly complex systems, compared to those using a direct coding. A variety number of developmental and generative models have been proposed, ranging from a set of re-writing rules to gene regulatory network model including metabolic reactions. Evolution of developmental and generative models is of great interest not only to efficient optimization of large-scale systems, but also to the understanding of the evolution of the body plan and neural control in living systems. This special session aims to promote cross-disciplinary research in evolutionary computation, artificial life, computational neuroscience and computational systems biology. Topics of the special session include but are not limited to: + Scalable evolutionary algorithms using indirect or generative encoding + Evolution of computational models for morphological and neural development + Evolutionary and developmental approaches to engineering design + Analysis of evolvability and robustness of developmental systems + Evolutionary synthesis of regulatory dynamics + Benchmarking evolutionary developmental systems Important Dates + Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2011 + Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2011 + Final paper submission: April 1, 2011 Submission Procedure All papers are to be submitted electronically at http://cec2011.org/submission.htm. Please select "Special Session on Evolution of Developmental and Generative Systems" as the topic of your paper. Please also notify the special session organizers yaochu.jin #at# surrey.ac.uk or amt #at#ohm.york.ac.uk of your notice. ******************************************************************************** Sender: Alexandru Tantar <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Call for Abstracts - EVOLVE 2011, Luxembourg E V O L V E http://evolve.uni.lu May 25-27 (Wednesday-Friday), 2011 Bourglinster Castle, Luxembourg SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 15, 2011 ===================================================== The massive use and large applicability spectrum of evolutionary algorithms for real-life applications determined the need of establishing solid theoretical grounds. Only to offer a few examples, one may consider mathematical objects that are sometimes difficult and costly to calculate. At the same time, acknowledged new results show that evolutionary computation can provide in some cases good and fast estimators of these quantities. Similarly, the handling of large amounts of data may require the use of distributed environments where the probability of failure and the stability of the algorithms may need to be addressed. What is more, common practice comes only to confirm that theory based results have the advantage of ensuring performance guarantee factors for evolutionary algorithms in areas as diverse as optimization, bio-informatics or robotics. The EVOLVE workshop has as aim to unify theory-inspired methods and cutting-edge techniques developed by practitioners, as to identify new common and challenging research aspects. The workshop is also intended to foster a growing interest for robust and efficient methods with a sound theoretical support. Important topics, among others, relate to the scaling of theoretical methods to meet the requirements of real-world applications or to the development of flexible software tools incorporating performance measurement mechanisms. By gathering researchers with different backgrounds, ranging from computer science to mathematics, statistics and physics, to name just a few, a unified view and vocabulary can emerge where the theoretical advancements may echo in practice. Summarizing, the workshop focuses on challenging aspects arising at the passage from theory to practice and aims to provide a unified view while raising questions related to reliability, practical implementation and modeling. The workshop represents a follow-up of the Workshop on Evolutionary Algorithms - New Challenges in Theory and Practice, organized by the ALEA working group with the support of the EA association in Bordeaux, France, March 2010. Topics of interest ================== - performance guarantee factors for large scale optimization problems - performance guarantees measures for existing algorithms - set oriented numerics - robust methods for large scale, high dimensional problems - theoretical tools, components that ensure the robustness in practice - theoretical foundations - mathematical objects and evolutionary programming - robust / fast estimation of mathematical quantities - particle methods, Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods - spatial complexity of methods and its implications in practice - robustness of parallel and distributed evolutionary optimization - self-tuning, self-adaptive techniques - particular issues (e.g. landscape analysis) - swarm intelligence - real-world applications Submission ========== We invite researchers working on both theoretical and practical aspects of evolutionary algorithms to submit an abstract of maximum two pages. The submissions have to be done exclusively through EasyChair, at the following address: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=evolve2011. All submissions must be in English. The final submission must include the PDF file along with all the accompanying source files (LaTeX file, figures). An EasyChair account is mandatory - in case you do not have an EasyChair account, you can create one for free at EasyChair. The final version of the abstract must be uploaded on EasyChair before the 15th of March 2011. Publication =========== The accepted abstracts will appear in proceedings which will be handed out at the event. In addition, all accepted authors will be invited to submit an extended version of their work to two journal special issues (details to be disclosed shortly). Further, authors will be invited to contribute with an extended version of their work to an edited book on the theoretical foundations of evolutionary computation. Due to the one-track event, a limited number of papers can be included, therefore, in the case where the program will not fit all accepted submissions, we strongly encourage passive participation. A panel of discussions will be put on place to this end in order to provide a forum for exchanging new ideas and for identifying new challenging research aspects. Important dates =============== Submission deadline: March 15, 2011 Notification of acceptance: April 1, 2011 Registration deadline: April 15, 2011 Conference dates: May 25-27, 2011 Contacts ======== EVOLVE 2011 is organized by Alexandru-Adrian Tantar, Emilia Tantar, Pascal Bouvry (University of Luxembourg), in collaboration with Oliver Schütze (CINVESTAV, Mexico) and Pierre Del Moral and Pierrick Legrand (INRIA, France). For questions or additional information please do not hesitate to contact us at [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] The call is also available online on the EVOLVE 2011 website at http://evolve.uni.lu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=63 ******************************************************************************** (UN)SUBSCRIPTION INSTRUCTIONS: - Send submissions (articles) to [log in to unmask] DO NOT send submissions to the [log in to unmask] address. - To subscribe send email to [log in to unmask] containing the following text in the body of the message: subscribe ec-digest-l <Your Name (up to 4 words)> - To unsubscribe send email to [log in to unmask] containing the following text in the body of the message: unsubscribe ec-digest-l - To change your email address, simply unsubscribe the old address and subscribe the new one. - Send other administrative requests to [log in to unmask] - For further information about the digest, see http://ec-digest.research.ucf.edu ******************************************************************************** End of Evolutionary Computation Digest ********************************************************************************