-*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACO-list Tuesday 14 October 2003, Volume 3 : Number 1 Send announcements of other activities to: ACO-list@iridia.ulb.ac.be with subject: "announcement" Send subscription requests to: ACO-list-request@iridia.ulb.ac.be with subject: "subscription" -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Topics: - ANTS'04 - Fourth International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence : CALL FOR PAPERS -*----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Oct 2003 From: a.roli@unich.it ANTS 2004 Fourth International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence Brussels, Belgium, September 5-8, 2004 CALL FOR PAPERS (prepared on Oct 13, 2003) Up-to-date information at http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2004/ SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP Swarm intelligence is a relatively novel discipline interested in the study of self-organizing processes in Nature and human artifacts. 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, algorithms inspired by these models have been proposed to solve difficult computational problems. An example of particularly successful research direction in swarm intelligence is "ant colony optimization", which focuses on discrete optimization problems. Ant colony optimization has been applied successfully to a large number of difficult discrete optimization problems including the traveling salesman, the quadratic assignment, scheduling, vehicle routing, etc., as well as to routing in telecommunication networks. Another example of interesting research direction is swarm robotics, where the focus is on applying swarm intelligence techniques to the control of large groups of cooperating autonomous robots. The ANTS 2004 workshop will give researchers in both real and artificial swarm intelligence the opportunity to meet, to present their latest research, and to discuss current developments and applications. The four-day workshop will be held in Brussels, Belgium, Sep 5-8, 2004. September 5 will be devoted to tutorials. RELEVANT RESEARCH AREAS ANTS 2004 solicits contributions dealing with any aspect of ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence. Typical, but not exclusive topics of interest are: - Models of the behavior of social insects or other animal societies that can stimulate new algorithmic approaches. - Empirical and theoretical research in ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence. - Application of ant colony optimization and swarm intelligence methods to real-world problems. - Swarm robotics. PUBLICATION DETAILS Conference proceedings will be published by a major publisher and distributed to the participants at the conference site. More on this subject will be published soon on the web site. BEST PAPER AWARD A best paper award will be presented at the workshop. FURTHER INFORMATION Up-to-date information about the workshop will be available at the ANTS 2004 web site (http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2004/). 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 As the number of participants will be limited, participants are strongly invited to pre-register. If you intend to participate, please fill in the INTENTION FORM available at the workshop web page and email it to: ants-registration@iridia.ulb.ac.be IMPORTANT DATES Title and abstract deadline Mar 12, 2004 Submission deadline Mar 19, 2004 Notification of acceptance May 21, 2004 Camera ready copy June 6, 2004 Tutorials Sep 5, 2004 Workshop Sep 6-8, 2004 ANTS'2004 CONFERENCE COMMITTEE PROGRAM CHAIR Marco DORIGO, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium TECHNICAL PROGRAM AND PUBLICATION CHAIRS Mauro BIRATTARI, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium Luca M. GAMBARDELLA, IDSIA, USI-SUPSI, Manno, Switzerland Francesco MONDADA, ASL, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Thomas STUETZLE, INTELLEKTIK, TUD, Germany PUBLICITY CHAIR Andrea ROLI, Universita' degli Studi "G.D'Annunzio", Chieti, Italy PROGRAM COMMITTEE Under formation. WORKSHOP ADDRESS ANTS2004 WORKSHOP IRIDIA CP 194/6 Tel +32-2-6502729 Universite' Libre de Bruxelles Fax +32-2-6502715 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~ants/ants2004/ 1050 Bruxelles email: ants@iridia.ulb.ac.be Belgium WORKSHOP LOCATION Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium RELATED CONFERENCES Note that ten days after ANTS'2004, the conference PPSN-VIII will take place in Birmingham, UK (http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/ppsn04/). -*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------