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Artificial Evolution Conference
Computer science research conference From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Artificial Evolution | Evolution Artificielle (EA) Conference is a peer-reviewed research conference on evolutionary computation and related areas of natural computing held every two years (until recently in odd-numbered years). It originated in France and every EA conference has been held there until recently (see history below). Proceedings of EA are published by Springer-Verlag in their LNCS series.
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Origin
Artificial Evolution was originally initiated as a forum for the French-speaking evolutionary computation community, and the first conference, organized by fr:Jean-Marc Alliot,[1] Evelyne Lutton,[2] Edmund Ronald[3] and Marc Schoenauer,[4] was held in Toulouse in 1994 under the name Evolution Artificielle. It was, until recently, the only EA conference held in an even year, and the only one with proceedings[5] not published by Springer (they were published by Cepadues[6]).
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History
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In 1995 The Artificial Evolution Association (L'association Évolution Artificielle)[7] was formed to encourage exchanges and meetings in artificial evolution and evolutionary computation. After the initial meeting in 1994 (see origin above) it has been involved in the organisation of the Artificial Evolution conferences from 1995 to the present day. In addition to the Artificial Evolution conferences it has organised other activities (see Artificial Evolution Association below).
The Artificial Evolution conference became an international conference in 1995 in Brest, under the name Artificial Evolution. Due to its strong relevance for the French-speaking research community it is still also described as Evolution Artificielle (French for Artificial Evolution) and uses the EA[8] abbreviation on conference websites and in the titles of proceedings volumes. The table below shows where Artificial Evolution conferences have been held and cites their proceedings and websites.
It should not be surprising that conference websites are not usually maintained for the length of time that conference proceedings are available. The table shows the number of the conference proceedings in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (with the exception of the first conference, see origin above, where the conference proceedings were published elsewhere). The reference to each conference proceedings gives the full title of that volume in the Springer LNCS series. The ISBN of each title is to the paperback volume, an eBook is also available by purchase or subscription.
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Format
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Artificial Evolution conferences are single-track conferences taking place over three days (as the program of AE 2024 in Bordeaux in diagram form shows[34]), to enable substantial engagement between participants.
Although all Artificial Evolution conferences have been organised from France, and from 1995 by the Artificial Evolution Association, itself based in France, all presentations are in English, the lingua franca of the modern computer science research community.
Papers submitted to the conference are peer-reviewed, and the resulting papers are available in the conference proceedings available at the conference.[35] A selection of the best papers from each conference are edited into a volume of the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science,[11] available after the conference.
While it may seen misleading to list the Springer LNCS volumes under Proceedings in the table of Artificial Evolution conferences above, Springer publications are more accessible and more durable following the conference, and they form part of a series (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) with high credibility in the academic and professional computer science community.
Plenary speakers
Plenary speakers are invited to each Artificial Evolution conference. The table below shows plenary speakers where indicated in the online program. Although most Artificial Evolution conferences are held in France and thus some plenary speakers reflect the importance of computer science research in that country (Belson, Fekete, del Moral), other plenary speakers come from further afield. (Ochoa is Venezuelan-British, based in Scotland; Hart is English, based in Scotland; Kern is German, based in England; and Trujillo is Mexican, based in that country).
Demonstrations
Because artificial evolution, evolutionary computation and related areas of natural computing may be addressed in many different ways, time is reserved at Artificial Evolution conferences for demonstration of some of the solutions that have been obtained. At EA 2022[28] in Exeter the following demonstrations were included, showing the application of artificial intelligence and natural computation:
- Augmented Evolutionary Intelligence Demonstration (Matt Johns, Edward Keedwell).
- Neural Network-Based Virtual Analog Modeling Applied to Guitar Amplifier Emulation (Tara Vanhatalo, Pierrick Legrand).
Poster sessions
Artificial Evolution conferences also include time for poster sessions. At EA 2024[30] in Bordeaux the following posters were presented addressing a number of topics within the overlapping fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and evolutionary computation:
- Comparative Study of Order Crossover Variants in Memetic algorithms for Solving the CVRP (Mohamed SA Sakhri, Goudet Olivier).
- Designing Less Myopic Routing Policies with Genetic programming for the Electric Vehicle Routing Problem (Đurasević Marko, Francisco JG Gala).
- Training Free U-Net for Retinal Vessel Segmentation (Muhammad J Ali, Laurent Moalic, Mokhtar Essaid, Lhassane Idoumghar).
Relevance
It is worth considering the importance of the Artificial Evolution conference series when many other research conferences are available.
The Artificial Evolutions attract participants from other European countries in addition to those from France. This is because the locations of the conference are easily accessible from other parts of Europe. There are fewer participants from further afield than some conferences held across more global venues.
Gabriela Ochoa and Nadarajen Veerapen[40] created a visualisation of the collaboration network[41] across Artificial Evolution conferences by extracting articles from the Artificial Evolution conference proceedings between 1995 and 2017 using the DBLP computer science bibliography.[42] It should not be surprising that the collaboration network shows clusters of collaboration around French computer scientists. But it also shows collaboration between French computer scientists (for example Evelyne Luttion) and British computer scientists (Edmund Burke[43] and Gabriela Ochoa). Further afield, collaborations have involved Darell Whitley (Colorado State University),[44] Thomas Baeck (Leiden University)[45] and Thomas Stützle (Universite Libre de Bruxelles)[46] as well as others.
Clearly Artificial Evolution conferences cannot compete with the much larger evolutionary computation conferences (GECCO or IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation) in the number of presentations that can be covered in one conference, nor in the number of potential attendees. But in contrast, as a smaller conference, presenters can be sure that the majority of attendees will watch their presentations, and any attendee at the conference will find it easier to talk with other attendees at the conference.
Alternative conferences
Other European conferences covering similar disciplines include EvoStar (comprising the four conferences EuroGP, EvoApplications, EvoCOP and EvoMUSART) and Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN).
The Foundations of Genetic Algorithms workshops (FOGA), actually a conference rather than a workshop, and devoted to the theoretical basis of all evolutionary algorithms and related heuristics rather than just genetic algorithms has been held in European locations as well as other international locations.[47]
The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) originated in the United States and many successive instances of that conference have been held there. Nevertheless, a number have been held in European locations, being linkely to attract similar professional interest from researchers as the Artificial Evolution conference and the other conferences mentioned above. The GECCO conferences held in Europe to date are mentioned in the table below:
The IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE CEC[48]) is another significant conference in the field of evolutionary computation and natural computing. While many IEEE CEC conferences have been held on other continents, some, like GECCO, have been held in Europe. The table below summarises their occurrence:
GECCO, FOGA and Parallel Problem Solving from Nature all received a CORE[51] rank A in that conference ranking system[52] for computer science suggesting their importance to attendees in evolutionary computation, natural computing and related fields. These are thus probably some suitable alternative research conferences.
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Artificial Evolution Association
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The Artificial Evolution Association[7] (AEA) was created to organise the Artificial Evolution conferences as described in history above, and it continues in this activity. But as well as organising the conferences, it also organises other activities.
JET days
JET[53] abbreviates in French Journées Évolutionnaires Thématiques (in English Thematic Evolutionary Days), formerly Journées Évolutionnaires Trimestrielles with the same initials. These are day-long meetings informal meetings on artificial evolution, evolutionary computation and related fields. They were held one or more times a year between 1998 and 2016, excepting one instance at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, always in France. It is not clear whether the lack of meetings after 2016 reflects a lack of updating the website or their cessation.
Mailing list
The AEA maintains a mailing list for people interested in Artificial Evolution. Following the trend of the JET days referred to above, its title is (in French) jet – Personnes interessées par l'Evolution Artificielle en France[54] An approximate translation in English is jet – Persons interested in Artificial Evolution in France. This mailing list appears to be live and thus is likely to have greater reach than the JET days above.
Summer schools
The AEA has supported Summer Schools at different locations across France,[55] designed for a combination of students, researchers and industrial practitioners in the fields that the Artificial Evolution conference and Association cover. These included introductions to the subjects as well as advanced lectures, and practical exercises which are essential for application in these field. The AEA has recorded Summer Schools as having taken place annually between 2006 and 2013.
Workshops
The AEA supported a number of workshops, held in Paris, Bordeaux and Luxembourg from 2010 to 2011,[56] in addition to its organisation of the Artificial Evolution conferences and other activities. Details of these workshops are no longer accessible. This is perhaps not surprising since it is fourteen years since the last recorded workshop supported by the Artificial Evolution Association.[57]
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References and notes
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