©Guy Theraulaz




 Conference email address: ants@iridia.ulb.ac.be


Call for papers in pdf (0.2 MB) and postscript (1.3 MB) format.

NEW General information about Brussels and Accomodations in Brussels is available here.

The behavior of social insects in general, and of ants living in colonies in particular, has since long time fascinated researchers in ethology and animal behavior, who have proposed many models to explain their capabilities.

Recently, ant algorithms have been proposed as a novel computational approach 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, able to adapt quickly to changing environments and to continue functioning even 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 like the quadratic assignment and the traveling salesman problems, to routing in telecommunications networks, scheduling, and other problems.

ANTS'2000 is the second edition of the only event entirely devoted to ant algorithms and to Ant Colony Optimization. Of great interest to the workshop are also models of real ant colonies organization and functioning which could stimulate new algorithmic approaches.

The aims are to give researchers in both real ants behavior and in ant algorithms an opportunity to meet, to present their latest research, and to discuss current developments and applications.

The two-day event will be held in Brussels, Belgium, from 8 to 9 September, 2000. In the evening of September 7 there will be a tutorial on ant algorithms.

The number of participants will be limited. If you intend to participate please fill in and send the intention form, or drop a line to ants@iridia.ulb.ac.be.

Note that just after ANTS'2000 there will be in Paris (85 minutes by train from Brussels) two related conferences: SAB2000, September 11-15, and PPSN VI, September 17-20.

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Last updated Nov 30, 1999