[Apologize if you receive multiple copies of this call]

WORKSHOP ON MEASURING AND PROMOTING DIVERSITY IN EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS (MPDEA)

to be held as part of the

2016 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2016)

<http://gecco-2016.sigevo.org/>

July 20-24, Denver, CO, USA

Deadline: April 02, 2016

Dear colleagues,

Please find below the announcement for the GECCO workshop on Measuring and Promoting Diversity in Evolutionary Algorithms (MPDEA)

Divergence of character is a cornerstone of natural evolution. On the contrary, evolutionary optimization processes are plagued by an endemic lack of diversity: all candidate solutions eventually crowd the very same areas in the search space. Such a "lack of speciation" has been pointed out in the seminal work of Holland in 1975, and nowadays is well known among scholars. It has different effects on the different search algorithms, but almost all are quite deleterious. The problem is usually labeled with the oxymoron "premature convergence", that is, the tendency of an algorithm to convergence toward a point where it was not supposed to converge to in the first place.

This workshop aims at presenting and exploring both novel and established solutions for promoting diversity in EAs. During the workshop, algorithms and solutions will be presented by the participants. A plenary discussion will address the current state of the art, and future developments to tackle the loss of diversity, both from a practical and a theoretical point of view.

Interested authors have different options to contribute:

1) Original contributions, descriptions of innovative techniques, surveys and comparative studies should be directly submitted to [log in to unmask] (see guidelines). Accepted papers will be included in proceedings companion to be distributed on USB key to all attendees of the conference and in the ACM Digital Library.

2) Authors of papers related to MPDEA that will appear in GECCO 2016 (or have been already published elsewhere) are encouraged to contact the organizers to discuss the opportunity to briefly present their contribution in the workshop.

3) Authors of interesting techniques related to the workshop topics are encouraged to contact the organizers. The workshop will start with a short summary of the state of the art in the field, giving full credits and references for all notable techniques. As the community is thriving and the amount of new contributions is increasing at a considerable rate, every recommendation will be appreciated.

Workshop chairs shall survey the material and provide attendees full bibliographical references.

IMPORTANT DATES

* April 02, 2016 paper submission deadline

* April 19, 2016 decision notification

* July 20, 2016 or July 21, 2016 workshop

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Authors should email their papers to [log in to unmask] before April 2nd, 2016. Submissions should adhere to the ACM SIG guidelines as GECCO’s full papers (http://gecco-2016.sigevo.org/index.html/Papers), and not exceed six (6) pages in length.

Don't hesitate to forward this message to possibly interested people and all our apologies already if you received this file multiple times.

Thanks,

Giovanni Squillero & Alberto Tonda

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