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       Call For Papers - Fourth EU/ME Workshop

        DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF ADVANCED HYBRID META-HEURISTICS

                 4,5 November 2004, Nottingham, UK
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DESCRIPTION

Hybrid meta-heuristic approaches have been successfully applied to a
variety of continuous and combinatorial optimisation problems. There is
a great interest on this topic, as reflected by the fact that, a
considerable number of heuristic methods reported in the literature
include some form of hybridisation. However, despite the great number of
hybrid methods proposed by researchers and practitioners, more attention
is required on the development of frameworks for designing and
evaluating advanced hybrid meta-heuristics. Among the few examples of
such frameworks are memetic algorithms. The existence of such frameworks
is useful for the design and evaluation of advanced hybrid systems in a
more methodical fashion as in the case of memetic algorithms. Therefore,
in order to motivate more research in this area, the theme of the fourth
EU/ME workshop will be on the design and evaluation of advanced hybrid
meta-heuristics.
As in the previous EU/ME workshops, the 2004 workshop will bring
together researchers and practitioners from the meta-heuristics
community but this time those with a particular interest in
hybridisation. The overall aim of the workshop is to serve as a forum
for the exchange of ideas and experiences between the workshop
participants. The fundamental issues are: How can we effectively design
advanced hybrid meta-heuristics in a methodical way? How should we
evaluate the contribution of each component in the resulting hybrid system?

This is the fourth in a series of free of charge workshops organised by
EU/ME, the European Chapter on Metaheuristics. EU/ME is a working group
of EURO, the Association of European Operational Research Societies.
This worskhop is being organised in co-operation with ASAP, the
Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and PLanning Research Group at the
University of Nottingham, UK.

Workshop website http://webhost.ua.ac.be/eume/workshops/hybrid

TOPICS

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

- Hybridisation of meta-heuristics with exact methods, manual (or
interactive)
systems, etc.
- Hybrid evolutionary methods (e.g. memetic algorithms).
- A-teams of heuristics, also called A-architectures.
- Analysis of components in the hybridised system.
- Metric and methods to evaluate the performance of hybrid systems.
- Classification schemes, surveys, annotated bibliographies, etc.
- Innovative inter-disciplinary applications of hybrid meta-heuristics.



CONTRIBUTIONS

Authors are invited to submit a 3-5 pages extended abstract on the theme
of the workshop. Each extended abstract will be peer-reviewed by two
members of the programme committee. Please send contributions by email to:

Nysret Musliu at [log in to unmask]



PLENARY SPEAKERS
There will be a plenary talk on each day of the workshop.

First Plenary speaker:
We are pleased to announce that Dr Natalio Krasnogor will give a
presentation on the topic of Memetic Algorithms. Dr Natalio Krasnogor
has been actively involved in research on MA's and is well known in the
MA community. He is co-founder of the International series of Workshops
On Memetic Algorithms WOMA.

2nd Plenary speaker: To be announced



POST-WORKSHOP VOLUME

There will be two special issues devoted to the workshop's best papers only:

- Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS)
- Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Algorithms (JMMA)

Potential contributors are therefore encouraged to submit their
abstracts to the workshop in order to get a chance to submit an extended
version of their work to the post-workshop volume. The programme
committee will select only high-quality papers describing excellent
scientific work for publication in the above journals. It is expected
that both journal special issues will be published in late 2005.



REGISTRATION AND PARTICIPATION

Following the spirit of the EU/ME workshops, registration to the meeting
is free of charge (including tea, coffee and biscuits) for those
contributing a paper. Registration can be made at the workshop's website
http://webhost.ua.ac.be/eume/workshops/hybrid
Please note that, due to a limited number of places, colleagues are
invited to pre-register at the earliest opportunity. It is also possible
to register for the workshop as a non-contributor but this will be
subject to a small admin fee (check web site for further details).
Participants (contributors and non-contributors) will need to cover
their travel, accommodation and meal expenses. The workshop will take
place at the Comfort Hotel in Nottingham, UK. For those participants who
want to stay in that Hotel (which is of course very convenient), we have
negotiated a very good package of accommodation/meals for workshop
participants. A summary of this is as follows:

Full package at 220 GBP (approx. 330 EUROS) includes:

- 2 nights accommodation
- 2 Breakfast meals
- 2 Lunch meals
- Reception dinner (3rd November)
- Workshop banquet (4th November)


The 1 day accommodation rate is 110 GBP (approx. 165 EUROS) and includes
accommodation and meals.

Those attending the workshop but not staying at the hotel can get the
meals (including evening) package at 30 GBP (approx. 45 EUROS) per day.


IMPORTANT DATES

- Deadline for submission of contributions: 27 August 2004.
- Notification of accepted contributions: 24 September 2004.
- Deadline for early Registration: 01 October 2004.
- Workshop dates: 4 and 5 November 2004.



PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

- Edmund Burke (UK)
- Luca Di Caspero (Italy)
- Carlos Cotta (Spain)
- Kath Dowsland (UK)
- Michel Gendreau (Canada)
- Jens Gotlieb (Germany)
- Jin-Kao Hao (France)
- Graham Kendall (UK)
- Natalio Krasnogor (UK)
- Dario Landa Silva (UK)
- Peter Merz (Germany)
- Nysret Musliu (Austria)
- Ibrahim Osman (Lebanon)
- Gunther Raidl (Austria)
- Thomas Stutzle (Germany)
- Andrea Schaerf (Italy)
- Marc Sevaux (France)
- Wolfgang Slany (Austria)
- Kenneth Sorensen (Belgium)
- Eric Soubeiga (UK)
- El-ghazali Talbi (France)
- Greet Vanden Berghe (Belgium)



ORGANISING COMMITTEE
For more information please contact any member of the organising committee:

Jens Gottlieb ([log in to unmask]), SAP AG, Germany.
Dario Landa Silva ([log in to unmask]), University of Nottingham, UK.
Nysret Musliu ([log in to unmask]), Vienna University of
Technology, Austria.
Eric Soubeiga ([log in to unmask]), University of Nottingham, UK.

--
Dr E Soubeiga
Research Fellow, Hall Warden, Industrial Consultant
School of Computer Science & IT
The University of Nottingham
Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB
Tel: +44 (0)115 846 6531
Fax: +44 (0)115 951 4254
Email: [log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]

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