Dear colleague, this first issue of the ACO-list is a one-time mailing. You will not receive any more mailings from this list unless you subscribe as described below. Best regards, Marco Dorigo and Andrea Roli (list moderators). -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: - How to subscribe to the ACO-list - ACO-list policies and etiquette - Special track on ACO at GECCO-2001 - Special session on ACO at MIC'2001 - IJCAI-01 workshop on Stochastic Search Algorithms -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CALENDAR OF ACO-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with ACO-list issue reference) GECCO2001 Special Track on ACO, San Francisco, CA Jul 7-11, 2001 (v1n1) MIC'2001 Special Session on ACO, Porto, Portugal Jul 16-20, 2001 (v1n1) IJCAI-01 Wkshp on Stoch Search Algs, Seattle, WA Aug 6, 2001 (v1n1) -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE ACO-LIST A moderated digest about Ant Colony Optimization and Ant Algorithms has been set up, with the aim of collecting news, information, new ideas and comments about the Ant Colony Algorithms research area. Main topics: - Ant Colony Optimization - Ant Algorithms and Ant Systems - Swarm intelligence and insect behavior - Bio-inspired multi-agent systems Relevant information for the ACO-list are: - Conferences and workshops - Recent pubblications - New products (not just for commercial purposes, but with scientific interest) - Books and articles reviews - Open positions and any other information which could be useful for researchers in this area. For SUBSCRIPTIONS write to: ACO-list-request@iridia.ulb.ac.be For SUBMISSIONS write to: ACO-list@iridia.ulb.ac.be -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACO-LIST POLICIES 1) Privacy. The ACO-list email addresses will not be redistributed. 2) Advertisements. The ACO-list does not allow advertisements per se, although simple announcements of new products or services is allowed. ACO-list will welcome conference announcements and job positions to be posted if relevant to the field. ACO-LIST ETIQUETTE 1) Copyright and ACO-list. Permission is granted to copy ACO-list emails (or parts thereof) for research purposes, as long as these copies are not sold. If you wish to sell copies (or parts thereof), you must obtain permission from the current moderators and all submitters of that material. The ACO-list is a forum for informal discussion. Individual submissions (or parts thereof) should not be quoted and cited in text without the permission of the author. If you include private email from another person, please obtain permission from that person. 2) Redistribution Policy. Messages will be treated in a first-in first-out order, but they will be grouped in batches. There may be a delay between your submission and the distribution to the list. Please be patient and remember that the ACO-list is maintained on a volunteer basis. 3) Appropriate subjects. All submissions to ACO-list should directly pertain to the fields of ant colony optimization, ant algorithms and swarm intelligence, be polite, and as concise as possible. Please take the time to format your message neatly in plain text using a 80 column page. Please also avoid using dashes as separators since we use them to separate submissions. 4) Attention to Mailing Addresses. Please be careful to send messages to the correct email address as follows: ACO-list@iridia.ulb.ac.be is for submissions to the list ACO-list-request@iridia.ulb.ac.be is for administrative requests For those of you who have a change of email address, please give both your new and old addresses, so that we can delete the old address from our database. -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 18:49:55 +0100 From: vittorio maniezzo Dear Colleague, as you are probably aware of, the upcoming MIC'2001 - 4th Metaheuristics International Conference to be held in Porto (Portugal), July 16-20 2001 constitutes one of the main forum for the scientific community involved in research on metaheuristic algorithms. Within the framework of this conference Marco Dorigo and I are jointly organizing a special session dedicated to Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). We solicit therefore contributions, in the form of extended abstracts, describing original research on any aspect of ACO. Interested participants should submit a 5/6-page extended abstract in the following format: 1) a PDF or PS file to both mdorigo@ulb.ac.be and to maniezzo@csr.unibo.it, and 2) one paper copy directly to the MIC'2001 conference organizers. Deadline for submission is March 12, 2001. Formatting instructions and other conference related material can be downloaded from the conference web page: http://www.mic2001.com -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 14:30:26 -0800 From: Marco Dorigo A special track on Ant Colony Optimization is organized at GECCO-2001, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. More information is available at the conference www pages: http://www.isgec.org/GECCO-2001 http://gal4.ge.uiuc.edu:8080/GECCO-2001/special-prog.html -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 14:36:23 -0800 From: Holger H Hoos CALL FOR PAPERS / CALL FOR PARTICIPATION The IJCAI-01 Workshop on STOCHASTIC SEARCH ALGORITHMS August 6, 2001, Seattle, USA Workshop Description ===================== Stochastic search algorithms strongly use randomised decisions while searching for solutions to a given problem. They play an increasingly important role for practically solving hard combinatorial problems from various domains of AI and Operations Research, such as satisfiability, constraint satisfaction, planning, scheduling, and many application areas. Over the past few years there has been considerable success in developing stochastic local search algorithms as well as randomised systematic search methods for solving these problems, and to date, for many problem domains, the best known algorithms are based on stochastic search techniques. The increasing relevance and popularity of these methods in AI are reflected by a growing number of publications in journals, such as Artificial Intelligence and the Journal of Automated Reasoning, and at major AI conferences, such as IJCAI, ECAI, and AAAI. This workshop will bring together researchers from different areas of AI and Operations Research in order to discuss various topics in stochastic search techniques. Workshop topics will include: ============================== -- design and implementation of stochastic search algorithms -- metaheuristics, learning techniques, and self-tuning algorithms -- parallelisation and portfolios of stochastic search algorithms -- empirical analysis and evaluation of stochastic search algorithms -- theoretical results on stochastic search algorithms -- stochastic local search vs. randomised systematic search methods -- new applications of stochastic search The organisers aim to create a forum for sharing and discussing the latest results as well as fundamental issues in this highly dynamic and fast growing area of AI research. This one day workshop is organised by Holger H. Hoos and Thomas Stuetzle; it is co-ordinated with the IJCAI-01 Tutorial "Stochastic Search Algorithms" and the IJCAI-01 Workshop "Empirical Methods in Artificial Intelligence" and the IJCAI-01 Tutorial "Stochastic Search Algorithms" (also presented / organised by Holger H. Hoos and Thomas Stuetzle). Format ======= This one-day workshop will start with a brief introduction and overview by the organisers. In 1-2 invited talks, leading experts will discuss general aspects of stochastic search algorithms and their application. In addition, selected workshop participants will be presenting more specific results; these presentations will be selected based on the technical papers and position statements submitted by the participants. Issues raised by these presentations will be discussed by all workshop participants. Furthermore, we are planning to have 1-3 panels (the topics of these panels will be decided based on the submissions) in which panelists first present their position regarding possibly controversial issues in a 10 minute exposition. We will facilitate a workshop atmosphere and promote personal contacts among the workshop participants by various means. At the start of the workshop the participants will introduce themselves and give a short statement on their interest in and experience with stochastic search algorithms. The panels and general discussions will facilitate interaction between participants and the sharing of insights and views. A social programme comprising a joint lunch and dinner will provide further opportunities for an informal exchange of experiences and ideas. This workshop on Empirical Methods in Artificial Intelligence will be coordinated with the IJCAI-01 Workshop on ``Stochastic Search Algorithms'' (organised by Holger H. Hoos and Thomas Stuetzle) and the IJCAI-01 Tutorial on Stochastic Search (held by Holger H. Hoos and Thomas Stuetzle). Important Dates ================ -- Submission deadline: February 28, 2001 -- Notification of acceptance: March 25, 2001 -- Camera-ready copy deadline: April 11, 2001 -- Workshop: August 6, 2001 Submission Procedure ===================== We ask authors to submit technical papers or position papers either in Postscript or PDF. Every participant is expected to submit at least a 1-page statement of interest. Technical papers should address one or more of the workshop topics. Position papers should describe and justify your view on one or more topics relevant to this workshop. The paper should be reasonably concise; technical papers should be in the range from 4 to 6 pages in IJCAI or AAAI conference style, position papers should be about 1000 words. Submissions should be printed on 8.5" x 11" or A4 paper with at least 1 inch margins on all sides. The first page of the position paper should include the title, a brief abstract, and author names, affiliations, postal addresses, electronic mail addresses, and telephone and fax numbers. To submit a paper, email it (or a URL pointer to it) to hoos@cs.ubc.ca and stuetzle@informatik.tu-darmstadt.de. The number of participants is limited to 40 participants; participants will be selected based on the submitted position paper. All participants are expected to contribute to the discussions in the workshop. Note that all workshop participants must register for the main IJCAI-01 conference. Cochairs ========= Holger H. Hoos Dept. of Computer Science University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada Email: hoos@cs.ubc.ca WWW: www.cs.ubc.ca/~hoos Thomas Stuetzle Dept. of Computer Science, Intellectics Group Darmstadt University of Technology D-64283 Darmstadt, Germany Email: stuetzle@informatik.tu-darmstadt.de WWW: www.intellektik.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~tom Organisation Committee ======================= Roberto Bayardo, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA Marco Dorigo, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Henry Kautz, University of Washington, USA Heinz Muehlenbein, GMD Forschungszentrum Informationstechnik, Germany Additional Information ======================= http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hoos/IJCAI-01-WS/stoch.html