Parallel Problem Solving from Nature explained

Status:Active
Genre:Conference
Frequency:Biennially
Founders:-->
Last:2020
Next:2022
Area:Europe
Or Sponsors:-->
Website:https://ppsn2022.cs.tu-dortmund.de/

Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, or PPSN, is a research conference focusing on the topic of natural computing.

Other conferences in the area include the ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) and EvoStar (Evo*).

In 2020 PPSN got a CORE rank of A,[1] corresponding to an "excellent conference, and highly respected in a discipline area".[2]

History

The idea behind PPSN emerged around 1989-1990 when Bernard Manderick, Reinhard Männer, Heinz Mühlenbein, and Hans-Paul Schwefel, realised they shared a common field of study that was not covered by the conferences on Operations Research, Physics, or Computer Science they attended regularly.[3]

The field of Genetic Algorithms had already been established in the form of the ICGA conference in 1985, but the "fathers" of PPSN wanted a wider focus, with algorithms that included problem solving, parallel computing and the use of natural metaphors (such as Darwinian evolution or Boltzmann dynamics).

The success of the first PPSN event at Dortmund encouraged its organisers to start a biennial conference series, as a European counterpart to the American-based ICGA (which in 1999 merged with the Genetic Programming conference to give rise to GECCO).

Analogies to natural processes included the thermodynamic process of annealing, immune systems and neural networks, as well as other paradigms, with Darwinian evolution being by far the most frequently used metaphor.

In this way, evolutionary algorithms and evolutionary computation became the common denominator for the PPSN approach to problem solving by mimicking evolutionary principles like population, birth and death, mutation, recombination, and natural selection.

Editions

So far, seventeen PPSN conferences have been held:Dortmund (October 1–3, 1990), Brussels (September 28–30, 1992), Jerusalem (October 9–14, 1994), Berlin (September 22–26, 1996), Amsterdam (September 27–30, 1998), Paris (September 16–20, 2000), Granada (September 7–11, 2002), Birmingham (September 18–22, 2004), Reykjavik (September 9–13, 2006), Dortmund (September 13–17, 2008), Krakow (September 11–15, 2010), Taormina (Sicily) (September 1–5, 2012), Ljubljana (September 13–17, 2014), Edinburgh (September 17–21, 2016), Coimbra (September 8–12, 2018) Leiden (September 5–9, 2020), and Dortmund (September 10-14, 2022).

The last-but-one edition, held in Leiden, counted on Thomas Bäck and Mike Preuss as General Chairs and Carola Doerr, Michael Emmerich and Heike Trautmann as Programme Committee Chairs. André Deutz and Hao Wang were Proceedings Chairs and Anna Esparcia-Alcázar, Ofer Shir and Vanessa Volz were Workshops, Tutorials and Competitions Chairs, respectively; Anna Kononova was Local Chair.

Proceedings

Proceedings of PPSN have been historically published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (except in the second edition in 1992).

External links

Keynote speakers

1998 Grzegorz Rozenberg, Nicholas Gessler, and Lawrence Davis2000 Aaron Sloman, Luc Steels and Henrik Hautop Lund2002 Alexander Nareyek, Roderic Guigó and William Hart
2008 Levent Tunçel, Thomas Breitling and Arndt von Haeseler2010 Jon Garibaldi, Zbigniew Michalewicz and Darrell Whitley2012 Angelo Cangelosi, Natalio Krasnogor, Panos M. Pardalos, and Leslie G. Valiant
2014 Jadran Lenarčič, Thomas Bäck, A. E. (Gusz) Eiben,2016 Susan Stepney, Josh Bongard and Andrew Philippides2018 Ahmed Elgammal, Francis Heylighen and Kurt Mehlhorn2020 Eric Postma, Carme Torras and Christian Stöcker

Notes and References

  1. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, CORE Conference Portal, http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/1676/ [accessed Nov 8 2020]
  2. CORE Conference Ranking, https://www.core.edu.au/conference-portal [accessed Nov 8 2020]
  3. Günter Rudolph's PPSN page at TU Dortmund, https://ls11-www.cs.tu-dortmund.de/rudolph/ppsn [accessed Jul 24 2020]
  4. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XVI 16th International Conference, PPSN 2020, Leiden, The Netherlands, September 5–9, 2020, Proceedings, Part I. Thomas Bäck, Mike Preuss, André Deutz, Hao Wang, Carola Doerr, Michael Emmerich, Heike Trautmann (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12269, 2020,,
  5. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XVI 16th International Conference, PPSN 2020, Leiden, The Netherlands, September 5–9, 2020, Proceedings, Part II. Thomas Bäck, Mike Preuss, André Deutz, Hao Wang, Carola Doerr, Michael Emmerich, Heike Trautmann (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12270, 2020,,
  6. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XV. 15th International Conference, Coimbra, Portugal, September 8–12, 2018, Proceedings, Part I. Anne Auger, Carlos M. Fonseca, Nuno Lourenço, Penousal Machado, Luís Paquete, Darrell Whitley (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11101, 2018,,
  7. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XV. 15th International Conference, Coimbra, Portugal, September 8–12, 2018, Proceedings, Part II. Anne Auger, Carlos M. Fonseca, Nuno Lourenço, Penousal Machado, Luís Paquete, Darrell Whitley (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11102, 2018,,
  8. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XIV 14th International Conference, Edinburgh, UK, September 17–21, 2016, Proceedings. Julia Handl, Emma Hart, Peter R. Lewis, Manuel López-Ibáñez, Gabriela Ochoa, Ben Paechter (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 9921, 2016,
  9. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XIII 13th International Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 13–17, 2014. Proceedings. Thomas Bartz-Beielstein, Jürgen Branke, Bogdan Filipič, Jim Smith (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series 8672, 2014,
  10. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN XII, 12th International Conference, Taormina, Italy, September 1–5, 2012, Proceedings, Part I. Carlos A. Coello Coello, Vincenzo Cutello, Kalyanmoy Deb, Stephanie Forrest, Giuseppe Nicosia, Mario Pavone (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 7491, 2012,
  11. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN XII, 12th International Conference, Taormina, Italy, September 1–5, 2012, Proceedings, Part II. Carlos A. Coello Coello, Vincenzo Cutello, Kalyanmoy Deb, Stephanie Forrest, Giuseppe Nicosia, Mario Pavone (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 7492, 2012
  12. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN XI, 11th International Conference, Kraków, Poland, September 11–15, 2010, Proceedings, Part I. Robert Schaefer, Carlos Cotta, Joanna Kolodziej, Günter Rudolph (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6238, Springer 2010,
  13. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN XI, 11th International Conference, Kraków, Poland, September 11–15, 2010, Proceedings, Part I. Robert Schaefer, Carlos Cotta, Joanna Kolodziej, Günter Rudolph (Eds). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6239, Springer 2010,
  14. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN X, 10th International Conference Dortmund, Germany, September 13–17, 2008, Proceedings. Günter Rudolph, Thomas Jansen, Simon M. Lucas, Carlo Poloni, Nicola Beume (Eds.). Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5199, Springer 2008,
  15. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN IX, 9th International Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland, September 9–13, 2006, Proceedings. Thomas Philip Runarsson, Hans-Georg Beyer, Edmund K. Burke, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, L. Darrell Whitley, Xin Yao (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4193, Springer 2006,
  16. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN VIII, 8th International Conference, Birmingham, UK, September 18–22, 2004, Proceedings. Xin Yao, Edmund K. Burke, José Antonio Lozano, Jim Smith, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, John A. Bullinaria, Jonathan E. Rowe, Peter Tiño, Ata Kabán, Hans-Paul Schwefel (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3242, Springer 2004,
  17. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN VII, 7th International Conference, Granada, Spain, September 7–11, 2002, Proceedings. Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Panagiotis Adamidis, Hans-Georg Beyer, José Luis Fernández-Villacañas Martín, Hans-Paul Schwefel: (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2439, Springer 2002,
  18. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN VI, 6th International Conference, Paris, France, September 18–20, 2000, Proceedings. Marc Schoenauer, Kalyanmoy Deb, Günter Rudolph, Xin Yao, Evelyne Lutton, Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Hans-Paul Schwefel: (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1917, Springer 2000,
  19. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN V, 5th International Conference, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, September 27–30, 1998, Proceedings. A. E. Eiben, Thomas Bäck, Marc Schoenauer, Hans-Paul Schwefel (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1498, Springer 1998,
  20. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN IV, International Conference on Evolutionary Computation. The 4th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Hans-Michael Voigt, Werner Ebeling, Ingo Rechenberg, Hans-Paul Schwefel (Eds.), Berlin, Germany, September 22–26, 1996, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1141, Springer 1996,
  21. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN III, International Conference on Evolutionary Computation. The Third Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Yuval Davidor, Hans-Paul Schwefel, Reinhard Männer (Eds.), Jerusalem, Israel, October 9–14, 1994, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 866, Springer 1994,
  22. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature 2, PPSN-II, Reinhard Männer, Bernard Manderick (Eds.), Brussels, Belgium, September 28–30, 1992. Elsevier 1992,
  23. Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, 1st Workshop, PPSN I, Dortmund, Germany, October 1–3, 1990, Proceedings. Hans-Paul Schwefel, Reinhard Männer (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 496, Springer 1991,