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Call for Papers
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2015 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation Special Session and
Competition on: "Niching Methods for Multimodal Optimization"
May 25 -- 28, 2015, Sendai, Japan.
URL:
http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~xiaodong/cec15-niching/URL:
http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~xiaodong/cec15-niching/competition/============
Objectives
============
Population based meta-heuristic algorithms such as Evolutionary Algorithms
(EAs) in their original forms are usually designed for locating a single global
solution. These algorithms typically converge to a single solution because of
the global selection scheme used. Nevertheless, many real-world problems are
"multimodal" by nature, i.e., multiple satisfactory solutions exist. It may be
desirable to locate many such satisfactory solutions so that a decision maker
can choose one that is most proper in his/her problem domain. Numerous
techniques have been developed in the past for locating multiple optima (global
or local). These techniques are commonly referred to as "niching" methods. A
niching method can be incorporated into a standard EA to promote and maintain
formation of multiple stable subpopulations within a single population, with an
aim to locate multiple globally optimal or suboptimal solutions. Many niching
methods have been developed in the past, including crowding, fitness sharing,
derating, restricted tournament selection, clearing, speciation, etc. In more
recent times, niching methods have also been developed for other meta-heuristic
algorithms such as Particle Swarm Optimization and Differential Evolution.
Most of existing niching methods, however, have difficulties which need to be
overcome before they can be applied successfully to real-world multimodal
problems. Some identified issues include: difficulties to pre-specify some
niching parameters; difficulties in maintaining found solutions in a run; extra
computational overhead; poor scalability when dimensionality is high. This
special session aims to highlight the latest developments in niching methods,
bring together researchers from academia and industries, and explore future
research directions on this topic. We invite authors to submit original and
unpublished work on niching methods. Topics of interest include but are not
limited to:
- Theoretical developments in multimodal optimization
- Niching methods that incurs lower computational costs
- Handling the issue of niching parameters in niching methods
- Handling the scalability issue in niching methods
- Handling problems characterized by massive multi-modality
- Adaptive or parameter-less niching methods
- Multiobjective approaches to niching
- Multimodal optimization in dynamic environments
- Niching methods applied to discrete multimodal optimization problems
- Niching methods applied to constrained multimodal optimization problems
- Niching methods using parallel or distributed computing techniques
- Benchmarking niching methods, including test problem design and performance
metrics
- Comparative studies of various niching methods
- Niching methods applied to engineering and other real-world multimodal
optimization problems
Please note that we are NOT interested if the adopted task is to find
a single solution of a multimodal problem.
Furthermore, a companion competition on Niching Methods for Multimodal
Optimization will also be organized in conjunction with our special
session. See further information at:
http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~xiaodong/cec15-niching/competition/The aim of the competition is to provide a common platform that
encourages fair and easy comparisons across different niching
algorithms. The competition allows participants to run their own
niching algorithms on 20 benchmark multimodal functions with different
characteristics and levels of difficulty. Researchers are welcome to
evaluate their niching algorithms using this benchmark suite, and
report the results by submitting a paper to the associated niching
special session (i.e., submitting via the on-line submission system of
CEC'2015). In case it is too late to submit the paper (i.e., passing
the CEC'2015 submission deadline), author may submit their results in a
report directly to the special session organizers, in order to be
counted in the competition.
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Important Dates
================
- Paper Submission: 19 December 2014
- Notification of Acceptance: 20 February 2015
- Final Paper submission: 13 March 2015
Paper Submission:
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the standard format and
page limit specified in CEC 2015. For more submission instructions,
please see the CEC’2015 submission page at:
http://sites.ieee.org/cec2015/Please indicate during submission that your paper is submitted to this
special session.
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Special Session Organizers
==========================
Xiaodong Li, RMIT University, Australia
Andries Engelbrecht, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Michael G. Epitropakis, University of Stirling, Scotland
