SIXTH ANNUAL WORKSHOP ON
Evolutionary Computation and Multi-Agent Systems
and Simulation Workshop (ECoMASS-2012)
to be held as part of the
2012 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2012)
July 7-11, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Organized by ACM SIGEVO
http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2012
PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR WORKSHOP: March 28, 2012
Workshop URL: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/ecomass/
Evolutionary computation (EC) and multi-agent systems and simulation
(MASS) both involve populations of agents. EC is a learning technique by which a population of individual agents adapt according to the selection pressures exerted by an environment; MASS seeks to understand how to coordinate the actions of a population of (possibly
selfish) autonomous agents that share an environment so that some outcome is achieved. Both EC and MASS have top-down and bottom-up features. For example, some aspects of multi-agent system engineering (e.g., mechanism design) are concerned with how top-down structure can constrain or influence individual decisions. Similarly, most work in EC is concerned with how to engineer selective pressures to drive the evolution of individual behavior towards some desired goal. Multi-agent simulation (also called agent-based modeling) addresses the bottom-up issue of how collective behavior emerges from individual action.
Likewise, the study of evolutionary dynamics within EC (for example in
coevolution) often considers how population-level phenomena emerge from individual-level interactions. Thus, at a high level, we may view EC and MASS as examining and utilizing analogous processes. It is therefore natural to consider how knowledge gained within EC may be relevant to MASS, and vice versa; indeed, applications and techniques from one field have often made use of technologies and algorithms from the other field.
Studying EC and MASS in combination is warranted and has the potential to contribute to both fields.
The goal of this workshop is to facilitate the examination and development of techniques at the intersection of evolutionary computation and multi-agent systems and simulation.
The ECoMASS workshop welcomes original submissions in the theory and practice on all aspects of Evolutionary Computation and Multi-Agent Systems and Simulation, which include (but are not limited to) the following topics and themes:
*Paper Submission
Each accepted paper will be presented orally at the workshop and distributed in the workshop proceedings to all GECCO attendees. Authors should follow the format of the GECCO manuscript style; refer to http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2012/ for details. Manuscripts should not exceed 8 pages. Papers should be submitted by 28 March, 2012 in PostScript or PDF format to: [email protected]
*Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: 28 March, 2012 Notification of acceptance: April 9, 2012 Camera-Ready Accepted Papers Due: April 16, 2012
*Workshop Chairs
Forrest Stonedahl, Centre College
Rick Riolo, University of Michigan
*Workshop Program Committee
Bill Rand, University of Maryland
Jim Reggia, University of Maryland
Michael North, Argonne National Laboratory Robert G. Reynolds, Wayne State University Tina Yu, Memorial University of Newfoundland Moshe Sipper, Ben-Gurion University Matt Knudson, Carnegie Mellon University Kagan Tumer, Oregon State University
GECCO is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO). SIG
Services: 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY, 10121, USA,
1-800-342-6626 (USA and Canada) or +212-626-0500 (Global).