-*------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ACO-list Wednesday 11 April 2001, Volume 1 : Number 2 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: - Fifth European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning - PhD and postdoc positions for ACO and other metaheuristics research - Social Insect Meeting Announcement - New ACO WWW pages - Ant Routing and security software - New book announcement -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) EWRL5'2001 Wkshp on Reinf Learn, Utrecht, Netherlands Oct 5-6, 2001 (v1n2) Social Insect Meeting, Cambridge, United Kingdom Dec 7-8 2001 (v1n2) -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 March 2001 From: Marco Wiering First Call for Participation The Fifth European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL5'2001) 5 and 6 October 2001 Utrecht, the Netherlands The biennal European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL) will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands this year. The goal is to gather researchers interested in Reinforcement Learning and its applications. The invited talk will be presented by Prof. Leslie Kaelbling. We encourage the submission of a 2-page abstract, on any aspect of Reinforcement Learning including (but not restricted to): Theoretical aspects of reinforcement learning Function approximation in reinforcement learning Exploration in reinforcement learning Direct vs. Indirect reinforcement learning Multi-agent reinforcement learning Robotic reinforcement learning Novel algorithms for reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning for complex problem solving Reinforcement learning for dynamic replanning Reinforcement learning and game theory Important dates: Submission deadline : 1 August 2001 Acceptance/rejection notification : 3 September 2001 Presentations at EWRL : 5/6 October 2001 For further information, we refer to the website: http://www.cs.uu.nl/~marco/EWRL5.html We look forward to seeing you at EWRL'2001 this year. Marco Wiering (marco@cs.uu.nl) Marco Dorigo (mdorigo@ulb.ac.be) -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 March 2001 From: Marco DORIGO PhD and postdoc positions for ACO and other metaheuristics research Within the Metaheuristics Network, a research network funded by the European Commission, there are still a few positions available (at Universite' Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium and at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany). More information concerning the positions in Brussels can be found at: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ACO/positions.html More information concerning the positions in Darmstadt can be found at: http://www.intellektik.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~tom/TUD-Openings.html PLEASE NOTE: There are a number of restrictions for a researcher to be eligible. These are listed in the following: ------------------------- Conditions for EU grants ------------------------- The researcher must be 35 years old or less at the time of his appointment (allowances are possible for special cases like child care and military service). The researcher must be a holder of a doctoral degree or of a degree in an appropriate subject in Science or Engineering. The appointment will be for a fixed-term. The applicant must be a national of a Member State of the European Community or of an Associated State (a list of Associate States can be found at: http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/src/3rdcountries.htm) or have resided in the European Community for at least five years prior to his appointment. The applicant must choose a Centre located in a state different from his national state and he must not have carried out his activities in that state for more than 12 of the 24 months prior to his appointment. We explicitly encourage female researchers to apply for the offered positions. We guarantee that the selection process, based solely on the research records, will give equal opportunities to female and male researchers. -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 March 2001 From: David Sumpter Social Insect Meeting Announcement >From Worker to Colony: Understanding the Organisation of Insect Societies ========================================================================= 7th and 8th of December 2001 Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK Web page: http://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/~sumpter/newton.html ======================================================== This meeting aims to bring together social insect researchers and mathematicians with an interest in the problem of relating individual to collective behaviour in biology. It will focus on the biological questions that arise in the organisation of insect societies, with talks on specific experimental systems and the mathematical techniques that have been applied in understanding them. Invited Speakers: ================= Nigel Franks (Bristol): From simple rules of thumb to collective intelligence Thomas Seeley (Cornell): Choosing a new home: how the scouts in a honey bee swarm make a unanimous decision Guy Theraulaz (Toulouse): Some aspects of morphogenesis in social insects Walter Tschinkel (Florida): Ant nest architecture: a record of collective action Nick Britton (Bath): Do social insect self-organisze? Contributed Talks: ================== We are currently calling for contributed talks both on colony organisation and other aspects of social insect behaviour and biology. Of particular interest are talks that describe systems which are amenable to novel mathematical or statistical analysis. We would also be interested in talks on the application of ant-like algorithms to computer science problems. If you would like to talk at the meeting, please email or post a short abstract (less than 500 words) to the address below by the 31st of May 2001. Poster Session: =============== An important component of this meeting will be a poster session. If you are a biologist with a specific problem, which you think could be addressed by mathematical modelling, then a poster might be the ideal format to present this problem. To present a poster at the meeting, please email or post a short abstract (less than 300 words) to the address below by the 31st of October 2001. Registration: ============= Registration must be made in advance and costs £25 (£15 for students). The charge covers lunch and refreshments on both days, but not accommodation or dinner. Registration forms are available online and should be sent, along with payment, to the oraganiser, David Sumpter: email: sumpter@maths.ox.ac.uk address: David Sumpter, Centre for Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Institute, 24-29 St. Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LB, UK. before the 31st of October 2001. This meeting is financially supported by British Telecom and the IUSSI British section and is part of the Isaac Newton Institute programme on 'individual to populations in biological systems' For further information see http://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/~sumpter/newton.html -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 March 2001 From: Marco DORIGO New ACO WWW pages at http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ACO/ACO.html WWW pages for ant colony optimization have been renewed (thanks to Christian Blum for this!). They are accessible as usual at http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ACO/ACO.html Marco Dorigo -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 March 2001 From: Weilin Zhong Hi, I am a Computer Science graduate student at the University of Virginia (US). I am very interested in swarm intelligence and trying to find a suitable topic for my research. I would be very grateful for your reading of my message and giving any feedback. I have read some of the Ant Routing papers and notice that none of these algorithms have given considerations for the security issues. For example, how robust are ant routing algorithms in the presence of attackers sending out malicious ant packets? How much damage can a few malicious packets cause? I would like do some experiments on the security issues based on these ant routing algorithms. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find an implementation of an ant routing algorithm to start with. Does anyone know where I can get a nice and workable system, so that I needn't to re-implement the work that has already be done? Does anyone know of any other work looking at security issues in swarm algorithms? Any suggestions and advice you have would be be highly appreciated! Thank you for your time. Best, Weilin Zhong weilin@cs.virginia.edu -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 March 2001 From: Godfrey C. Onwubolu Dear List Moderators, Please find the write-up for promotion of my book "Emerging optimization techniques in production planning and control" as an attachment to this email. Could you please distribute to all colleagues who are on the ACO-mailing list. Sincerely, Godfrey Onwubolu ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Godfrey C. Onwubolu, Ph.D. Professor of Technology Department of Technology The University of the South Pacific PO Box 1168 Suva FIJI Tel: (679) 212706 (Direct) Fax: (679) 302567 Email: onwubolu_g@usp.ac.fj ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EMERGING OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES IN PRODUCTION PLANNING AND CONTROL by Godfrey C. Onwubolu (University of the South Pacific, Fiji) This book proposes a concept of adaptive memory programming (AMP) for grouping a number of generic optimization techniques for combinatorial problems. The same common features that are seen in the use of memory and a local search procedure drive these emerging optimization techniques, which include artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms, tabu search and ant systems. The primary motivation for AMP, therefore, is to group and unify all these techniques so as to enhance the computational capabilities that they offer to combinatorial problems encountered in real life in the area of production planning and control. The text describes the theoretical aspects of AMP together with relevant production planning and control applications. It covers the techniques, applications and algorithms. The book has been written in such a way that it can serve as an instructional text for students and those who are taking tuition on their own. The numerical examples given are first solved manually to enhance the reader's understanding of the material, and that is followed by the description of the algorithms and computer results. This way, the students can fully follow the material. The algorithms described for each application are useful to both interested students and practitioners in grasping how to implement similar applications in computer code using emerging optimization techniques. Contents: Introduction to Emerging Optimization Techniques and Production Planning and Control; Production Planning and Control Systems: Production Planning Systems; Production Control Systems; Emerging Optimization Techniques: Artificial Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms, Tabu Search, Ant Systems; Simulated Annealing; Programming Techniques. Readership: Upper division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, academics/lecturers and practitioners concerned with emerging techniques for solving real life problems in production planning and control; manufacturing, mechanical and industrial engineers, as well as computer scientists and mathematicians. 550pp (approx.) Pub. Date: Scheduled Fall 2001 1-86094-266-0 US$126 -*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------