3rd Workshop on Evolutionary Computation for the Automated Design of Algorithms
July 7th
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Description
Although most evolutionary computation techniques are designed to generate specific solutions to a given instance of a problem, some of these techniques can be explored to solve more generic problems. For instance, while there are many examples of evolutionary algorithms for evolving classification models in data mining or machine learning, the work described in [1] used a genetic programming algorithm to create a generic classification algorithm which will, in turn, generate a specific classification model for any given classification dataset, in any given application domain.
Although the work in [1] consisted of evolving a complete data mining/machine learning algorithm, in the area of optimization this type of approach is named a hyper-heuristic. Hyper-heuristics are search methods that automatically select and combine simpler heuristics, creating a generic heuristic that is used to solve any instance of a given target type of optimization problem. Hence, hyper-heuristics search in the space of heuristics, instead of searching in the problem solution space [2,3], raising the level of generality of the solutions produced by the hyper-heuristic evolutionary algorithm. For instance, a hyper-heuristics can generate a generic heuristics for solving any instance of the traveling salesman problem, involving any number of cities and any set of distances associated with those cities [4]; whilst a conventional evolutionary algorithm would just evolve a solution to one particular instance of the traveling salesman problem, involving a predefined set of cities and associated distances between them.
Whether we name it an approach for automatically designing algorithms or hyper-heuristics, in both cases, a set of human designed procedural components or heuristics surveyed from the literature are chosen as a starting point (or as "building blocks") for the evolutionary search. Besides, new procedural components and heuristics can be automatically generated, depending on which components are first provided to the method.
The main objective of this workshop is to discuss evolutionary computation methods for automatic generation of algorithms or heuristics. Instead of using evolutionary computation to evolve solutions, these methods evolve methodologies that can be applied to future problems, after the evolution process has finished. We aim to discuss all aspects of the automatic design of algorithms. The areas of application of these algorithms may include, for instance, data mining, machine learning, optimization, bioinformatics, image processing, economics, etc.
[1] G. L. Pappa and A. A. Freitas, Automating the Design of Data Mining Algorithms: An Evolutionary Computation Approach, Springer, Natural Computing Series, 2010. xiii + 187 pages.
[2] E. K. Burke, M. Hyde, G. Kendall and J. Woodward, A genetic programming hyper-heuristic approach for evolving two dimensional strip packing heuristics. In: IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 2010.
[3] E. K. Burke, M. R. Hyde, G. Kendall, G. Ochoa, E. Ozcan and J. R. Woodward, Exploring Hyper-heuristic Methodologies with Genetic Programming, Computational Intelligence: Collaboration, Fusion and Emergence, In C. Mumford and L. Jain (eds.), Intelligent Systems Reference Library, Springer, pp. 177-201, 2009
[4] M. Oltean and D. Dumitrescu. Evolving TSP heuristics using multi expression programming. In: Computational Science - ICCS 2004, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3037, pp. 670-673. Springer, 2004.
Important Dates
Paper Submission
Submitted papers should follow the ACM format, and not exceed 8 pages. Please see the GECCO 2013 information for authors for further details. However, note that the review process of the workshop is not double-blind. Hence, authors' information should appear in the paper.
All accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and appear in the GECCO workshop volume. Proceedings of the workshop will be published on CD-ROM, and distributed at the conference.
Papers should be submitted in PostScript or PDF format to: [jsw at cs dot stir dot ac dot uk], and contain the subject "GECCO Workshop".
Schedule
This will be a half day workshop. Each presentation is planned to last for 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes for discussions, and the panel will last 45 minutes.
14.00 Workshop Opening
14.10 Introductory talk: Contrasting Meta-learning and Hyper-heuristic Research: the Role of Evolutionary Algorithms
Gisele L. Pappa, Gabriela Ochoa, Matthew R. Hyde, Alex A. Freitas, John Woodward and Jerry Swan
14.50 Using Supportive Coevolution to Evolve Self-Configuring Crossover
Nathaniel R. Kamrath, Brian W. Goldman and Daniel R. Tauritz
15.20 Refining Scheduling Policies with Genetic Algorithms
Emin Ogur and Mehmet E. Aydin
15.50 Coffee Break
16.10 Evolving Black-Box Search Algorithms Employing Genetic Programming
Matthew A. Martin and Daniel R. Tauritz
16.40 Towards a Method for Automatically Evolving Bayesian Network Classifiers
Alex G. C. de Sá and Gisele L. Pappa
17.10 Invited Talk: Metaheuristic Design Patterns
Jerry Swan
17.50 Wrap up and Conclusions
Workshop Chairs
Gisele L. Pappa - UFMG(Federal University of Minas Gerais), Brazil
John Woodward - University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Jerry Swan - University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Krzysztof Krawiec - Poznan University of Technology, Poland
Contact
Call for Papers
Although most evolutionary computation techniques are designed to generate specific solutions to a given instance of a problem, some of these techniques can be explored to solve more generic problems. The main objective of this workshop is to discuss evolutionary computation methods for generating generic algorithms and/or heuristics. These methods have the advantage of producing solutions that are applicable to any instance of a problem domain, instead of a solution specifically produced for a single instance of the problem. The areas of application of these methods may include, for instance, data mining, machine learning, optimization, bioinformatics, image processing, economics, etc.
The workshop welcomes original submissions on all aspects of Evolutionary Computation for Designing Generic Algorithms, which include (but are not limited to) the following topics and themes:
Last updated on 02 June, 2013
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