
Genetic Algorithms Digest    Monday, 26 March 1990    Volume 4 : Issue 5

 - Send submissions to GA-List@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL
 - Send administrative requests to GA-List-Request@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL

Today's Topics:
	- TCGA
	- GA for a pursuit game
	- Clarification of deadlines for Workshop on Foundations of GAs
	- Class-room scheduling via GA
	- Call for Papers -- Dortmund Workshop

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CALENDAR OF GA-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with GA-List issue reference)

Double Auction Tournament - Sante Fe Institute  (v3n12)       Mar 1990
Workshop on GAs, Sim. Anneal., Neural Nets - Glasgow (v3n15)  May 9, 1990
7th Intl. Conference on Machine Learning (submissions 2/1/90) Jun 21-23, 1990
Workshop Foundations of GAs (v3n19)                           Jul 15-18, 1990
Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, Paris (v3n21)  Sep 24-28, 1990
Workshop Parallel Prob Solving from Nature, W Germany (v4n5)  Oct 1-3,   1990

(Send announcements of other activities to GA-List@aic.nrl.navy.mil)

******************************************************************************

--------------------------------

Date: Wed, 7 Mar 90 15:34:59 PST
From: mdeale@vega.ACS.CalPoly.EDU (Myron Deale)
Subject: TCGA

Hello, 
   I've seen this term before, "The Clearinghouse for Genetic Algorithms."
I've read Goldberg's book and understand the use of clearinghouse's in
classifier systems. However, TCGA is attributed as having published
papers, how would I go about contacting them?

-Myron

--------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 90 10:29:10 EST
From: jrv@sdimax2.mitre.org
Subject: GA for a pursuit game

I am designing a GA for the mutual optimization of kinetic-kill
interceptors (like the "brilliant pebbles" proposed recently by
Livermore) and their targets (ICBMs which maneuver in an attempt to
avoid the interceptors).  The target has no sensor, so it cannot change
its behavior in response to the observed behavior of the interceptor. 
It must choose its avoidance strategy before the engagement.  The
interceptor does have a sensor, so it could conceivably change its
guidance law in mid-flight.

I want to treat the problem as a pursuit game in which both the
interceptors and their targets evolve.  Conceivably, there is more than
one good strategy for each group, so I would also like to encourage the
formation of species.  I am looking at sharing functions for this [1].

As with other two-person games, a pure strategy (a fixed sequence of
maneuvers for the target, or a fixed guidance law for the interceptor)
may quite possibly be inferior to a mixed strategy (a stochastic
mixture of pure strategies).  Should the appropriate mixture be
determined by the GA, or separately?

I am planning to encode for each target a sequence of maneuvers.  An
inversion operator would seem appropriate to permute this sequence. 
Holland discusses inversion operators in ANAS, but they seem to have
been unpopular in recent implementations.  For example, inversion is
not included in GENESIS.  Why is this?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to set up the GA for two
populations competing in an asymmetric game? Suppose there are I
interceptors and T targets.  I would prefer not having to perform all
IT possible comparisons in order to establish fitness.  I expect
the comparisons to be much more expensive than the overhead of even an
elaborate GA.

I have looked at Ping-Chung Chi's work on games [2].  My case is easier
than his in that I can compute a relative fitness (actually two of
them: divert delta velocity for a successful intercept, or miss
distance for a failed one).  However, his work suggests that the number
of comparisons can be limited.

Unlike the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma studied by Axelrod [3] and Marks
[4], this game is not repeated -- each booster and interceptor will
meet only once, so they will have no opportunity to exploit knowledge
of their opponent's past behavior.  Also, of course, there is no hope
of cooperation here.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

                             - Jim Van Zandt <jrv@mbunix.mitre.org>

---------
[1] K. Deb and D. E. Goldberg, "An Investigation of Niche and
    Species Formation in Ginetic Function Optimization", 3rd ICGA.

[2] P. C. Chi, "Genetic Search with Proportion Estimations", 3rd ICGA.

[3] R. Axelrod, "The Evolution of Strategies in the iterated
    Prisoner's Dilemma", Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing, 1987.

[4] R. E. Marks, "Breeding Hybrid Strategies: Optimal Behavior for
    Oligopolists", 3rd ICGA.

--------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 90 15:39:01 -0500
From: Gregory J. E. Rawlins <rawlins@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Clarification of deadlines for Workshop on Foundations of GAs

Hello, it seems that there is some confusion about the deadlines for the
workshop on the foundations of genetic algorithms and classifier systems
to be held in Bloomington in July 15th-18th, 1990. This letter is intended
to clarify the issues; please phone, or send me mail if you have further
questions. We have extended one of the deadlines (see below) because of
all of the confusion.
	Thanks for your time,
	gregory.
--
812-855-2136; rawlins@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
==========================================================================
Format:
=======

The intent of the workshop is to collect those people interested in the
foundations of genetic algorithms and classifier systems and hammer out
the basic assumptions and theories of the field. The format is designed
to make the workshop a very low stress affair. In pursuit of this aim
attendance is being kept to less than forty, and deadlines and publication
are arranged so that possible contributors have a lot of leeway. There is
no publisher pressure prior to the workshop, and there is no pressure to
have results completely polished before the workshop.

The workshop is mostly by invitation. We accepted abstracts (with a March
1st deadline) to review. Authors of acceptable abstracts are then invited.
Several people sent abstracts and they are under review. The workshop is
being kept to a small number to encourage as much discussion as possible
and to reduce ``conference burnout.'' As of this writing, about 30 people
have already agreed to attend and so there are only a few slots left open.
The March 1st deadline has now been extended to May 1st.
(NOTE: if you are already invited you DO NOT have to send abstracts by May 1st.)

The proceedings are almost completely separate. Papers are to be submitted
to be reviewed by us *after* the workshop. If these papers can be edited
to make a collection of rigourous papers with a common theme (foundational
aspects of genetic algorithms/classifier systems) then the papers will be
published in a proceedings volume. The publisher, as of this writing, is
Morgan Kaufmann. The deadline for submission of papers intended for possible
inclusion in the proceedings is September 1 (to give everyone a chance to
polish their results and also to bound the time that they have to do it in
so that the proceedings appear within a year and not three years from now).

==========================================================================
Deadlines:
==========

Deadline for submission of abstracts			March 1st 1990
							[now extended: May 1]
Registration information mailed				April 1st 1990
Letter asking for specifics of topic of talk mailed	May 1st 1990
Registration period ends				May 15th 1990
Workshop						July 15th-18th 1990
Deadline for submission of papers for proceedings	September 1st 1990
Publication of proceedings				Spring 1991

==========================================================================
Abbreviated Call for Abstracts:
===============================

                               A Workshop on
        The Foundations of Genetic Algorithms and Classifier Systems
                            July 15th-18th, 1990
                         Bloomington, Indiana, USA

	The main thrust of this workshop will be towards rigorous approaches
	to understanding the foundations of genetic algorithms and classifier
	systems. Experimental results are acceptable, but they should have a
	defensibly (and preferably explicit) theoretical basis.

	Acceptable topics include but are not limited to:
	-convergence properties of genetic algorithms
	-structure theory for GA-hard problems
	-properties of the schema theorem
	-coding functions and representation
	-genetic algorithms as combinatorial optimizers
	-parallelizing evolutionary systems
	-sustaining long rule sequences in classifier systems
	-modularizing classifier systems
	-relations between evolutionary systems and neuromorphic systems
	-search space assumptions of distributed search procedures

	A program committee consisting of Kenneth De Jong, David Goldberg,
	Gregory Rawlins, and Dirk Van Gucht will review submitted abstracts.
	Abstracts should be no more than 15 pages long (excluding figures and
	tables), double-spaced, and set in 11pt or better.
	Authors will be notified of the committees decision by April 2nd, 1990.
	Please send four copies to:
	Gregory Rawlins
	Department of Computer Science
	101 Lindley Hall
	Indiana University
	Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

==========================================================================
Tentative Attendance:
=====================

Currently the following people are attending:
R. Belew		University of California San Diego
L. Booker		Naval Research Laboratory
C. Bridges		Carnegie-Mellon University
P.-C. Chi		Catholic University of America
M. Conrad		Wayne State University
J. Culberson		University of Alberta
Y. Davidor		Weizmann Institute
K. De Jong		George Mason University
L. Eshelman		Philips Laboratories
T. Fogarty		Bristol Polytechnic
S. Forrest		Los Alamos National Laboratory
D. Goldberg		University of Alabama
J. Grefenstette		Naval Research Laboratory
P. Jog			CADEX
J. Koza			Stanford University
G. Liepins		Oak Ridge National Laboratory
S. Louis		Indiana University
H. Muehlenbein		GMD
D. Offutt		Philips Laboratories
G. Rawlins		Indiana University
J. Richardson		University of Tenessee
R. Riolo		University of Michigan
J. Schaeffer		University of Alberta
D. Schaffer		Philips Laboratories
L. Shu			University of Alberta
R. Smith		University of Alabama
W. Spears		Naval Research Laboratory
J. Suh			Indiana University
D. Van Gucht		Indiana University
T. Westerdale		University of London
D. Whitley		Colorado State University
S. Wilson		Rowland Institute for Science

--------------------------------

Date: Mon, 19 Mar 90 14:46 N
From: DORI%IPMEL1.POLIMI.IT@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Class-room scheduling via GA

Milano,  19 March 1990

Is there anybody that can give me some informations about people
trying to solve the time-table problem (classroom scheduling) using
Genetic Algorithms? I need names and addresses or articles.  If anyone
has got some articles and is so nice to send them to me I'll
appreciate this a lot. My address is:

Marco Dorigo
Dipartimento di Elettronica
Politecnico di Milano
Via Ponzio 34/5
20133 Milano
Italia
Tel.  +39-2-2399-3622
e-mail:  dori%ipmel1.polimi.it@iboinfn.bitnet
             dorigo@tumult.informatik.tu-muenchen.de

Thank you to everybody that is going to help me,
 Marco

--------------------------------

Date:         Thu, 22 Mar 90 06:55:07 CST
From: Dave Goldberg <DGOLDBER@UA1VM.ua.edu>
Subject: Call for Papers -- Dortmund Workshop

The following Call for Papers should be of interest to genetic algorithmists.
Note that the workshop is the week following Stewart Wilson's Paris
conference, permitting overseas travelers to get two conferences for the
price of one.  I hope to see many of you there.  Dave G.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
                                and
                           CALL FOR PAPERS


                       International Workshop
                Parallel Problem Solving from Nature
                               (PPSN)

                         October 1 - 3, 1990
                University of Dortmund, Germany F.R.


Scope

With the appearance of massively parallel computers increased
attention has been paid to algorithms which rely upon analogies to
natural processes. The workshop scope includes but is not limited
to the following topics:

 - Darwinian methods such as Evolution Strategies
   and Genetic Algorithms
 - Boltzmann methods such as Simulated Annealing
 - Classifier systems and Neural Networks insofar as
   problem solving predominates
 - Transfer of other natural metaphors
   to artificial problem solving

The objectives of this workshop are

 - to bring together scientists and practitioners working on
   and with such strategies.

 - to gather theoretical results about as well as experimental
   comparisons between these algorithms.

 - to discuss various implementations on different parallel
   computer architectures (e.g. SIMD, MIMD, LAN).

 - to look for current and future applications in science,
   technology, and administration.

 - to summarize the state of the art in this field which up to
   now has been scattered so widely among disciplines as well
   as geographically.


Submission of papers, Proceedings

Prospective authors are invited to submit 4 copies of an extended
abstract of two pages to the conference chair before June 1, 1990.
All contributions will be reviewed by the programme committee and
up to about 30 papers will be selected for presentation. Authors
will get notice about acceptance or rejection of their papers by
July 15, 1990.

Full papers will be due on September 1, 1990. They will be delivered
to all participants at the conference as a prepublication volume.
Final papers for the proceedings of the workshop should be finished
immediately after the workshop. Details about the format of the
camera-ready final papers will be distributed later.


Language

The official language for papers and presentations is English.


Conference Chair:
H. Muehlenbein                     and  H.-P. Schwefel
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik            University of Dortmund
und Datenverarbeitung (GMD) -Z1-        Dept. of Computer Science
P. O. Box 12 40, Schloss Birlinghoven   P. O. Box 50 05 00
D-5205 St. Augustin 1                   D-4600 Dortmund 50
F. R. Germany                           F. R. Germany
Tel. +49-2241-142405                    Tel. +49-231-755-4590
Fax  +49-2241-142889                    Fax  +49-231-755-2047
bitnet grzia0@dbngmd21                  bitnet uin005@ddohrz11

Programme Committee:

(chair)   D.E. Goldberg      Univ. of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA
(chair)     R. Maenner       Univ. of Heidelberg,          FRG
                             Institute of Physics
                             Philosophenweg 12
                             D-6900 Heidelberg 1
                             Tel. +49-6221-569363
                             Fax  +49-6221-475733
                             bitnet maen@dhdmpi50

        E.M.L. Aarts         Philips Res.Lab. Eindhoven,   NL
            P. Bock          Univ. of Washington DC,       USA
            V. Cerny         Univ. of Bratislava,          CSSR
            Y. Davidor       Weizmann Inst. Rehovot,       Israel
            G. Dueck         IBM Heidelberg,               FRG
          J.J. Grefenstette  Naval Res.Lab. Washington DC, USA
        A.W.J. Kolen         Univ. of Limburg, Maastricht, NL
            B. Manderick     Univ. of Brussels,            Belgium
            H. Roeck         Univ. of Bielefeld,           FRG
            H. Schwaertzel   Siemens AG Munich,            FRG
            B. Soucek        Univ. of Zagreb,              YU
         H.-M. Voigt         Academy of Sciences Berlin,   GDR


Organization
Committee:      J. Becker, H. Bracklo, H.-P. Schwefel,
                E. Speckenmeyer, A. Ultsch

Sponsors:       Parsytec GmbH and Paracom GmbH,
                IBM Deutschland GmbH, Siemens AG

Deadlines:      Abstracts (2 pages)            June        1, 1990
                Notification of acceptance     July       15, 1990
                Full papers (for preprints)    September   1, 1990
                Workshop                       October   1-3, 1990
                Final papers                   November    1, 1990


Reply Form

International Workhop
Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN)
Dortmund, October 1-3, 1990

c/o Prof. Dr. H.-P. Schwefel
Dept. of Computer Science          Tel. +49-2 31/7 55/45 90
P. O. Box 50 05 00                 Fax  +49-2 31/7 55/20 47
D-4600 Dortmund 50                 bitnet uin005@ddohrz11
F. R. Germany


Title     First Name     Middle Initials     Last Name

.................................................................

Institution .....................................................

Address .........................................................

.................................................................

.................................................................

(  ) Please send further information
(  ) I intend to attend the workhop
(  ) I intend to submit an abstract:

Title of paper to be presented

.................................................................

.................................................................

Category:  (  ) theory    (  ) implementation    (  ) application


--------------------------------

End of Genetic Algorithms Digest
********************************

