[Please circulate to all those who might be interested, and accept our apologies if you received multiple copies of this announcement]

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The 55th Conference of the UK Operational Research Society (OR55)

http://www.theorsociety.com/OR55/

Exeter, September 2-5, 2013

Call for Abstracts for the METAHEURISTICS stream

http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Conferences/OR55/Streams/OR55Metaheuristics.aspx

Submission Deadline: 14 June 2013

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We invite abstracts and presentations on metaheuristics, either theory or practice-oriented (preferably on real world applications).

We are open to all contributions on metaheuristics. We are particularly interested in those that lead to some general insight or are potentially relevant to more than one application area.

We take a very broad definition of metaheuristics, for example simulated annealing, tabu search, but also evolutionary algorithms, multi-meme algorithms, adaptive operator selection, hyper-heuristics, dynamic algorithm portfolios, reactive search, particle swarm and others.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

* metaheuristics for combinatorial optimisation problems

* metaheuristics for multi-objective, discrete and continuous optimisation

* metaheuristics for dynamic environments

* metaheuristics to generate (create) heuristics (e.g., generation hyper-heuristics)

* metaheuristics to choose heuristics (e.g., selection hyper-heuristics)

* self adaptive metaheuristics and hyper-heuristics

* meta/hyper-heuristics based on machine learning

* hybrids of metaheuristics with exact methods such as mathematical or constraint programming

* (automated) parameter tuning in meta/hyper-heuristics

* distributed/parallel metaheuristics

* applications of metaheuristics to new challenging domains

* analytical or semi-empirical studies of metaheuristics

* performance prediction

* performance robustness

* scalability issues

* classifications of metaheuristics

* barriers to uptake of metaheuristics in industry

The stream will provide an opportunity for the constructive exchange of ideas and will include a keynote presentation.

If you would like to give a talk in this stream, please submit a title and abstract of no more than 300 words via

http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Conferences/OR55/OR55Abstract.aspx

by selecting 'Metaheuristics' as the stream.

(For those who are not familiar with the OR conferences, the usual procedure is to submit a title and an abstract, and then if accepted, to give a talk of 20-25 minutes. A full paper or extended abstract is not required.)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Submission Deadline: 14 June 2013

Best wishes,

Stream Organisers

Ender Ozcan and Andrew J. Parkes

{Ender.Ozcan, Andrew.Parkes} @ nottingham.ac.uk