-*------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ACO-list Monday 21 January 2002, Volume 2 : Number 1 Send announcements of other activities to: ACO-list@iridia.ulb.ac.be Send subscription requests to: ACO-list-request@iridia.ulb.ac.be Note that if you search on "-*" you will skip from one message to the next. -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: - ANTS'2002 Call for Papers - Journal of Applied Systems Studies-Special Issue call for submission - ACO for location problems - Ant Algorithms for Real World Problems -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALENDAR OF ACO-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with ACO-list issue reference) ANTS'2002 3rd Int. Wkshp on Ant Algorithms, Brussels(B) Sep 11-14 2002 (v2n1) -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jan. 2002 From: mdorigo@iridia.ulb.ac.be ANTS'2002 - From Ant Colonies to Artificial Ants: Third International Workshop on Ant Algorithms Brussels, Belgium, September 11-14, 2002 CALL FOR PAPERS (up-to-date information on the workshop is maintained on the web at http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2002/) SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP The behavior of social insects in general, and of ant colonies in particular, has long since fascinated both the scientist and the layman. Researchers in ethology and animal behavior have proposed many models to explain interesting aspects of social insect behavior such as self-organization and shape-formation. Recently, ant algorithms have been proposed as a novel computational model that replaces the traditional emphasis on control, preprogramming, and centralization with designs featuring autonomy, emergence, and distributed functioning. These designs are proving flexible and robust, they are able to adapt quickly to changing environments and they continue functioning when individual elements fail. A particularly successful research direction in ant algorithms, known as "Ant Colony Optimization", is dedicated to their application to discrete optimization problems. Ant colony optimization has been applied successfully to a large number of difficult combinatorial problems including the traveling salesman problem, the quadratic assignment problem, scheduling problems, etc., as well as to routing in telecommunication networks. ANTS'2002 is the third edition of the only event entirely devoted to ant algorithms and to ant colony optimization. Also of great interest to the workshop are models of ant colony behavior which could stimulate new algorithmic approaches. The workshop will give researchers in both real ant behavior and in ant colony optimization an opportunity to meet, to present their latest research, and to discuss current developments and applications. The three-day workshop will be held in Brussels, Belgium, September 12-14, 2002. In the late afternoon of September 11th there will also be a tutorial on ant algorithms. RELEVANT RESEARCH AREAS ANTS'2002 solicits contributions dealing with any aspect of ant algorithms and Ant Colony Optimization. Typical, but not exclusive topics of interest are: (1) Models of aspects of real ant colony behavior that can stimulate new algorithmic approaches. (2) Empirical and theoretical research in ant algorithms and ant colony optimization. (3) Application of ant algorithms and ant colony optimization methods to real-world problems. (4) Related research in swarm intelligence. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE & PUBLICATION DETAILS Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes on Computer Science series (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/index.html), and distributed to the participants at the conference site. Submitted papers must be between 8 and 12 pages long, and must conform to the LNCS style (http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html). It is important that submissions are already in the LNCS format (papers that do not respect this formatting may not be considered). Submitted papers should be either in Postscript or PDF format and should be emailed to: ants-submissions@iridia.ulb.ac.be. Each submission will be acknowledged by email. Each submitted paper will be peer reviewed by at least two referees. BEST PAPER AWARD A best paper award will be presented at the workshop. REGISTRATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION By submitting a camera-ready paper, the author(s) agree that at least one author will attend and present their paper at the workshop. A registration fee of 200 EUR will cover organization expenses, workshop proceedings, the possibility to attend a tutorial on ant algorithms in the late afternoon of September 11, coffee breaks, and a workshop social dinner on Friday 13 evening. A reduced PhD student registration fee of 150 EUR is available. A proof of inscription to a doctoral school will be necessary. Up-to-date information about the workshop will be available at the ANTS'2002 web site (http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2002/). For information about local arrangements, registration forms, etc., please refer to the above mentioned web site, or contact the local organizers at the address below. LIMITED NUMBER OF PLACES The number of participants will be limited. If you intend to participate please fill in and email the INTENTION FORM available at the workshop web page to: ants-registration@iridia.ulb.ac.be Only researchers that have received a confirmation to their intention form may take part in the workshop. IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline April 14th, 2002 Notification of acceptance May 31st, 2002 Camera ready copy June 16th, 2002 Tutorial Sep 11th, 2002 Workshop Sep 12-14, 2002 ANTS'2002 CONFERENCE COMMITTEE PROGRAM CHAIR Marco DORIGO, IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium (mdorigo@ulb.ac.be) TECHNICAL PROGRAM AND PUBLICATION CHAIRS Gianni DI CARO, IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium (gdicaro@ulb.ac.be) Michael SAMPELS, IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium (msampels@ulb.ac.be) LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS Christian BLUM, IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium (cblum@ulb.ac.be) Mauro BIRATTARI, IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium (mbiro@ulb.ac.be) PROGRAM COMMITTEE (still under formation) Payman ARABSHAHI, JPL, NASA, Pasadena, CA Freddy BRUCKSTEIN, Technion, Haifa, Israel Oscar CORDON, University Of Granada, Spain David CORNE, University of Reading, Great Britain Jean-Louis DENEUBOURG, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Luca M. GAMBARDELLA, IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland Michel GENDREAU, Universite' de Montreal, Canada Walter GUTJAHR, University of Vienna, Austria Owen HOLLAND, University of West England, Bristol, UK Vittorio MANIEZZO, Universita' di Bologna, Italy Alcherio MARTINOLI, Caltech, Pasadena, CA Daniel MERKLE, Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany Peter MERZ, University of Tübingen, Germany Martin MIDDENDORF, Catholic Univ. of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany Rainer PALM Siemens, Munich, Germany Van PARUNAK, Altarum Institute, Ann Arbor, MI Thomas STUETZLE, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany Guy THERAULAZ, Universite' Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France Thanos VASILAKOS, ICS-FORTH, Crete, Greece PROGRAM CHAIR ADDRESS Marco Dorigo, Ph.D. Chercheur Qualifie' du FNRS Tel +32-2-6503169 IRIDIA CP 194/6 Fax +32-2-6502715 Universite' Libre de Bruxelles Secretary +32-2-6502729 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ 1050 Bruxelles http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2002/ Belgium http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/dorigo/ACO/ACO.html CONFERENCE LOCATION Avenue A. Buyl 87, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, Building C - 4th floor (IRIDIA, Dorigo's lab, is at the 5th floor of the same building). There will be signs giving directions to the workshop room. RELATED CONFERENCES Note that just before ANTS'2002, the conference PPSN-VII will take place in Granada, Spain (http://ppsn2002.ugr.es/ppsn2002.shtml). -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Oct. 2001 From: abbass@cs.adfa.edu.au Special Issue: Real Life Applications of Nature Inspired Combinatorial Heuristics ================================== Journal of Applied Systems Studies (JASS) Cambridge International Science Publishing, Cambridge, UK ================================== http://www.cs.adfa.edu.au/~abbass/JASS/ Theme and Scope =============== Combinatorial problems are indispensable part of many real life applications. For example, the Traveling Salesman Problem, Scheduling, and Propositional Satisfiability are some of the conventional combinatorial problems that are being used as a template for many real life applications. More recently, the area of combinatorial problems attracted many research with the advances in Heuristics and Multi-agent Systems. The dramatic increase in the size of the search space, the non-stationary nature of the environment, and the need for real-time responses motivated research into solving combinatorial problems using heuristic techniques. Nowadays, heuristic techniques went beyond their traditional definition as a simple rule of thumb. They are inspired by nature, biology, statistical mechanics, physics, and neuroscience, to name but a few. Nature inspired heuristics are inspired by natural phenomena or behavior such as Evolution, Ants, Honey-Bees, Immune systems, Forest, etc. This special issue will ONLY accept papers on real life applications of Nature inspired heuristics in combinatorial problems. Submitted papers must contain original materials not published in nor submitted to other journals. Manuscripts should not exceed 15 typed single-space A4 (printing area 14.7 x 24.7 cm) pages including title page, abstract, text, figures, tables and references. Potential authors should adhere to the "Guidelines for Contributors" of JASS, which can be found at http://www.unipi.gr/jass/. All the submissions for this special issue should be sent to the Guest Editor at the address shown below. (Electronic Submission is Preferred) Dr. Hussein A. Abbass School of Computer Science, University of New South Wales, Australian Defense Force Academy Campus, NorthCott Drive, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia. Email: abbass@cs.adfa.edu.au Topics Covered ============== Real life applications of the following heuristics 1. Evolutionary and Memetic Algorithms 2. Ant Colony Optimization 3. Marriage in Honey-Bees Optimization 4. Immune Systems 5. Others to the following areas 1. Agriculture 2. Bioinformatics 3. Defense 4. Production Systems 5. Data Mining 6. Finance 7. Engineering Applications 8. Others Proposed Referees: The author(s) of each article need to nominate at least 5 candidates of reviewers (names, institution, mailing address, and email) for their submitted paper. Nominated reviewers should be recognized researchers in the field. Proposed timetable Submissions due: March 1, 2002 Notification to authors: July 1, 2002 Revisions due: September 1, 2002 Final acceptance: December 1, 2002 Proposed publication: Within 2003 -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Oct 2001 From: ffassihi@yahoo.com [...] I am working on the idea of applying ACO in the location problems field (an area in which I have completed a B.Sc final project before. As Professor Dr. Dorigo suggests I am asking for ideas and opinions that exist in this area or maybe some suggestions to improve the direction of my search. So please if you know any application of ACO in location field let me know or if you have any idea about what makes my work more valuable it will be very kind of you to let me have your oppinion Warmest regards, S. Farhang Fassihi Iran University of Science & Technology Master's student of Industrial Eng. -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jan 2002 From: kxkrishnaiyer@wichita.edu Dear colleagues, I am a graduate student in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering working on the application of ANT Algorithms to Real World Problems. I am currently doing a literature review and have few questions. 1. How can one implement the algorithm? 2. Do we need to write codes in high level language and if yes which one should I use? Please do share your valuable suggestions. Thanks for your time and hope to get in touch with you and contribute for the ANT Algorithms Research. Yours Truly, Krishnan Krishnaiyer ===================== Krishnan Krishnaiyer Graduate Research Assistant Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Dpt 120 Engineering Building Wichita State University 1845 Fairmount Wichita, KS 67260-0036 U.S.A Phone: (316) 978-3873 FAX: (316) 978-3145 -*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------