Track "Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence" at GECCO 2009

Swarm Intelligence (SI) deals with natural and artificial systems composed of a large number of individuals that generate collective behaviors using decentralized control and self-organization. These behaviors are a result of the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment. SI algorithms are inspired by the behavior of social insects such as ants, bees, and wasps, as well as by that of other animal societies such as flocks of birds, or fish schools. Two popular swarm intelligence techniques for optimization are ant colony optimization (ACO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). Other examples include algorithms for clustering and data mining inspired by ants' cemetery building behavior, or dynamic task allocation algorithms inspired by the behavior of wasp colonies.

Submissions of original and previously unpublished work in the following areas of ACO and, more in general, SI research are encouraged:

• applications of ACO, PSO, and SI algorithms to real-world problems
• applications of these algorithms to scientific test cases
• new computational models and techniques
• new hybrids between these algorithms and other methods
• biological foundations
• models of the behavior of natural and artificial SI systems
• new theoretical results

Track Chairs

• Thomas STÜTZLE, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Mauro BIRATTARI, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Program Committee

• Ashraf Abdelbar, American University in Cairo, Egypt
• Tim Blackwell, University of London, UK
• Juergen Branke, Universität Rarlsruhe, Germany
• Arne Brutschy, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Maurice Clerc, Consultant, France
• Oscar Cordon, University of Granada, Spain
• Gianni Di Caro, USI-SUPSI, Switzerland
• Marco Dorigo, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Andries P. Engelbrecht, University of Pretoria, South Africa
• Muddassar Farooq, NUCES. Packistan
• Matteo Gagliolo, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Luca Maria Gambardella, USI-SUPSI, Switzerland
• Roderich Gross, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Walter J. Gutjahr, Universität Wien, Austria
• Julia K. Handl, University of Manchester, UK
• Richard F. Hartl, Universität Wien, Austria
• Colin Johnson, University of Kent, UK
• James Kennedy, Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA
• Wolfgang Konen, Fachhochschule Köln, Germany
• Oliver Korb, Universität Konstanz, Germany
• Xiaodong Li, RMIT University, Australia
• Vittorio Maniezzo, Universitŕ di Bologna, Italy
• Rui Mendes, Universidade do Minho, Portugal
• Martin Middendorf, Universität Leipzig, Germany
• Nicolas Monmarche, University of Tours, France
• Marco A. Montes de Oca, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Frank Neumann, Max-Planck Institute, Germany
• Ann Nowe, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Luis Paquete, University of Algarve, Portugal
• Rafael Parpinelli, Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil
• Konstantinos Parsopoulos, University of Patras, Greece
• Jorge Peńa, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Martin Roth, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Germany
• Michael Sampels, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Alexander Scheidler, Universität Leipzig, Germany
• Giovanni Sebastiani, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
• Yuhui Shi, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
• Christine Solnon, Université Claude Bernard, France
• Colin Twomey, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Michael Vrahatis, University of Patras, Greece