[alife] CFP: CEC 2009 Special Session on Techniques for Online and Distributed Evolutionary Computation

[Lidia Yamamoto]

********** IEEE CEC 2009 *********

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Session on

** "Techniques for Online and Distributed Evolutionary Computation" **

http://www.cec-2009.org/sessions.shtml#distEvoComp

Trondheim, Norway, 18th-21st of May, 2009

Within the context of computing and communication the "complexity
ceiling" limits the ability to introduce innovation and to cope with
changing user needs and demand. In order to overcome such limitations,
it is desirable for many software and hardware systems to embed
adaptation and evolution capabilities in the system fabric itself. By
doing so, they would be able to work and perform well under an extreme
variety of operating conditions, while at the same time easing system
management tasks.

Online evolution is difficult to achieve due to a variety of problems
and challenges. These include the need to envisage extremely resilient
evolutionary mechanisms (able to evolve without disrupting the system
operations), the ability to devise new strategies (in response to
external stimuli), and to operate in noisy environments. In other
words, an effective on-line system needs to continuously provide
evolvability to cope with an openended changing environment.

Extra challenges are also faced due to the interconnected and
distributed nature of many systems. Such systems cope with only
partial information (as single nodes/clusters may not be aware of the
global system status), and in many cases with delayed information on
the (estimated) fitness level of the current solution. In addition,
distributed systems are often composed of heterogeneous devices,
perhaps operating over different timescales and with different
constraints, further increasing the challenges of achieving evolution
in the global system. While no clear path is currently available to
devise an ultimate solution to such issues, there is great potential
for knowledge and tools that can be developed in the EC community to
contribute to building solutions to such extremely challenging
problems.

This special session will bring together scientists coming from EC and
other fields in computing (e.g., chemical computing and other
bio-inspired paradigms) as well as from "applied" research fields
(networking, services). The intention is to provide a forum for
cross-fertilization, where both problems arising in current computing
and communication systems, potential solutions and theoretical
EC-based approaches can be presented and discussed.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- resilient online and distributed EC mechanisms
- robustness vs. evolvability in online environments
- online evolution in artificial chemistries and chemical computing
- online/distributed evolutionary optimization in uncertain environments
- decentralized online evolutionary techniques
- online/distributed evolution in robotics and embryonic circuits
- online evolution in networked, distributed and pervasive systems

Papers submitted for this session will be peer-reviewed with the same
criteria used for other CEC papers. The paper format of the conference
is available on the website: http://www.cec2009.org. After a final
decision is made, authors will receive a notification letter
accompanied with the reports of the reviewers. All accepted papers
will be published along with all accepted papers at IEEE CEC 2009 and
at least one of the authors must register and attend to present
his/her paper at IEEE CEC 2009.


Important Dates:

Paper Submission: November 1st, 2008
Notification of acceptance or rejection: January 16th, 2009
Camera-Ready submission: February 16th, 2009


Organizers:

Lidia Yamamoto (University of Basel, Switzerland)
Emma Hart (Napier University, UK)
Tina Yu (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)
Daniele Miorandi (CREATE-NET, Italy)


Programme Committee:

Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo
Suranga Hettiarachchi
Mark Jelasity
Michael Orlov
Hiroki Sayama
Tim Taylor
Ankur Teredesai
Christof Teuscher
Jonathan Timmis
Athanasios Vasilakos
Michael Zapf