WCCI 2016 Workshop Key Challenges and Future Directions of Evolutionary Computation

Organised by:

Yun Li, University of Glasgow, UK (Chair)

Cesare Alippi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy (Vice President for Education, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society)

Thomas Bäck, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands (Editor, Handbook of Evolutionary Computation)

Piero Bonissone, Formerly Chief Scientist of GE Global Research, USA (WCCI'16 Workshops Chair)

Stefano Cagnoni, Università degli Studi di Parma, Italy (Secretary, AI*IA)

Carlos Coello Coello, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico (Associate Editor, IEEE Trans Evolutionary Computation)

Oscar Cordón, Universidad de Granada, Spain (WCCI'16 FUZZ-IEEE Conference Chair)

Kalyanmoy Deb, Michigan State University, USA (Associate Editor, IEEE Trans Evolutionary Computation)

David Fogel, Natural Selection Inc, USA (Founding Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Trans Evolutionary Computation)

Marouane Kessentini, University of Michigan, USA (WCCI'16 CEC Tutorial organiser)

Yuhui Shi, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China (WCCI'16 CEC Technical Chair)

Xin Yao, University of Birmingham, UK (President, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society)

Mengjie Zhang, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (WCCI'16 CEC Special Sessions Chair)

Motivation:

Since the first WCCI taking place in Orlando in 1994, this Congress series and the Evolutionary Computation community have progressed tremendously. A number of CEC Panel Sessions were held and explored future directions of Evolutionary Computation. As part of the forthcoming WCCI, CEC 2016 in Vancouver promises c.50 Special Sessions, covering comprehensive activities. A Workshop to explore "Key Challenges and Future Directions of Evolutionary Computation" and to reach consensus among academia and industry is therefore timely. This format (instead of a discussion-only forum or panel session) will allow position papers that are submitted, peer reviewed and duly accepted to be recorded in the CEC Workshop Proceedings for future references.

The Workshop:

Following individual presentations of accepted position papers, small breakout sessions will be held in parallel to explore deeper and broader views. Then an open panel discussion will proceed for convergence among academia and industry. It is intended that a short summary will be written up later for IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine as a separate article for the CIS community and beyond.

Main Topics:

You are warmly invited to submit a position paper with rationale, rigour and supporting evidence on one or more of the following aspects

• key challenges in Evolutionary Computation (such as NP-complexity, constraint handling, convergence proof, convergence vs robustness, optimality vs robustness, multi-/many-objectives, benchmarks, benchmarking problems);
• future directions of Evolutionary Computation (such as multi-modal optimisation, non-stationary evolution, multi-rate or learning evolution, variable-size or fuzzy evolution, distributed and concurrent optimisation, cloud-based evolution, automated design and customisation, optimal evolution, predictive evolution, hybrid ecological and cultural evolution, quantum and analogue 'evolutionary computation');
• real-world challenges to applications of Evolutionary Computation (such as application demand vs supply, real-world NP-hardest problems, landscape forecasting, complexity reduction, generational evolution vs interactive learning, real-time issues, streaming evolution, ease of implementation, scalability and parallelism, big data application);
• and their emergence and trending behaviours (such as Thomson Reuters' "Hot Topics", "Research Fronts" and "Essential Science Indicators").

Technical Requirements:
You position paper should be academic and should normally contain

1. An introduction - clearly identifying the issue and your position, and written in a way that catches the reader's attention
2. A perspective - based on critical reviews, and providing facts for a solid foundation of your arguments
3. A statement of your position or the challenge - formulating and limiting your chosen issue or argument carefully; supporting or validating your position through inductive reasoning with statistical data, authoritative references, or interviews with industrialist experts; analysing opportunities and threats
4. A discussion of both sides of the issue - examining the strengths and weaknesses of your position and potential alternatives
5. Perceived milestones - suggesting courses of action that you have deduced for future developments or in addressing their challenges
6. Potential impacts - evaluating possible solutions and their impacts on the subject, the field and the wider world
7. A conclusion - summarising and reinforcing (without repeating the introduction or body of the paper) the main points, millstones and impacts that you have formulated and advocated.

Submission:

• Submission by 15 January 2016 at Congress website http://ieee-cis.org/conferences/cec2016/upload.php
• LaTeX and MS-Word Templates are available here: http://wcci2016.org/submission.php

Publication:

Your position paper will be reviewed by a cross-disciplinary international programme committee, mainly comprising the organisers of this Workshop.  Accepted academic papers will be published in the CEC Workshop Proceedings. Further, it is intended that the summative discussion will be written up for the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine following the Workshop.

Biography of the Chair:

Yun Li is Professor of Systems Engineering at University of Glasgow. He received his PhD in parallel computing and control from University of Strathclyde in 1990. Following a period as Consultant Engineer with UK National Engineering Laboratory in 1989 and as post-doctoral Research Engineer with Industrial Systems and Control Ltd in 1990, he joined University of Glasgow as Lecturer in 1991. Dr Li developed a "Neural and Evolutionary Computing" course in 1995 and a popular online interactive courseware GA Demo in 1997.  In 1998, he established and chaired the IEEE CACSD Evolutionary Computation Working Group. He also established the European Network of Excellence in Evolutionary Computing (EvoNet) workgroup on systems, control and drives, and served on the EvoNet Management Board. In 2011, Professor Li went to Singapore as Founding Director to establish and lead University of Glasgow Singapore, the first overseas subsidiary in the University's 560-year history. He has over 200 publications, one of which is elected by Thomson Reuters into "Research Front in Computer Science", one into "Research Front in Engineering", four into "Essential Science Indicators" (ESI), one has been the most popular paper in IEEE Trans Control Systems Technology every month since publication in 2005, and one among the five most popular in IEEE Trans Systems, Man & Cybernetics - B. Professor Li is also the University's third "Top Author", an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans Evolutionary Computation and other journals, a Chartered Engineer in the UK, and an overseas referee for China's "Yangtze River Scholars Program" and Singapore's National Research Foundation and Ministry of Education.