Monday, July 31, 2006
Calumny halted at IB
I was recently forced to start moderating comments on this blog. Attacks of blog spam were stopped largely by requiring word verification (captchas), but offensive, ad hominem attacks have persisted to the point where all comments by non-members will be moderated before they are posted.
In general, comments will be posted (1) if they are relevant to the post they comment upon and (2) if they avoid slurring the author of the post and others in the community. IlliGAL Blogging has a point of view, and we welcome comments from those who disagree with us; controversial comments are the spice of blogging life, and the dialectic of online discourse can be enlightening. Having said this, we see no need to host comments that gratuitiously cast aspersions.
Of course, those who wish to continue their name-calling ways may choose to do so in the relative obscurity of their own blogs, but the pages of this blog are now closed to that type of comment.
In general, comments will be posted (1) if they are relevant to the post they comment upon and (2) if they avoid slurring the author of the post and others in the community. IlliGAL Blogging has a point of view, and we welcome comments from those who disagree with us; controversial comments are the spice of blogging life, and the dialectic of online discourse can be enlightening. Having said this, we see no need to host comments that gratuitiously cast aspersions.
Of course, those who wish to continue their name-calling ways may choose to do so in the relative obscurity of their own blogs, but the pages of this blog are now closed to that type of comment.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
More genetic art
IlliGAL Blogging reader and blogger Harold Skolnick (AKA www.physics-envy.blogspot.com) writes to show us some of his genetic algorithm art (see here). Also check out his photos (also here and here), drawings, paintings, and his blog.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Recent visits by country
Here are the latest stats of IlliGAL Blogging visitors by country:
- United States, 140
- Germany, 29
- Canada, 15
- United Kingdom, 13
- Italy, 10
- Netherlands, 7
- Austria, 7
- Japan, 7
- Portugal, 7
- Poland, 6
Canada beating our the UK is a bit of a surprise, and Poland would be a surprise, but Polish is one of two languages that Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning has been translated into (see here). The other is French.
Linkorama
It has been awhile since I've acknowledged those who link to us. Thanks to www.robsyvertsen.org, www.togelius.blogspot.com/, http://philosophyofengineering.blogspot.com/, http://www.deepmarket.com/, http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/, and http://physics-envy.blogspot.com/ for the recent links.
Slurrier blogs GECCO
Bill Tozier (AKA The Notional Slurry, AKA The Slurrier) blogs about GECCO-2006 here.
Discovery of cis-regulatory elements with a genetic algorithm
Discovery of cancer protocols with a genetic algorithm
Knowing.net blogs the Humies
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Epictetus rides again
CEC part of WCCI in Vancouver
IEEE's big genetic algorithms conference (CEC) is going on now as part of the World Congress on Computational Intelligence in Vancouver, British Columbia (see here). WCCI always attracts a big crowd, and they have a large panel of plenary speakers in neural nets, fuzzy systems, and GAs.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Sastry, Lanzi, and Goldberg among paper winners
It was just announced that lab members Kumara Sastry, Pier Luca Lanzi, and Dave Goldberg were among the best paper winners at GECCO-2006.
APECS Conference in planning
Erik Goodman announced that planning is underway for a conference called the Asia-Pacific Evolutionary Computation Conference (APECS?). Plans are for a 400 person conference with 1/4 international attendance in October 2008.
Conference report 2006 and 2007
Mike Catallico (2006 chair) has asked for help in soliciting student travel grants from the government and industry. Student travel is dependent on these donations. 509 attendees came to the conference.
Hod Lipson (2007 chair) reports that the organization is moving GECCO to Europe (probably London, probably July 2007). There are big plans to have big name keynote speakers and an open Humie Exhibition.
Hod Lipson (2007 chair) reports that the organization is moving GECCO to Europe (probably London, probably July 2007). There are big plans to have big name keynote speakers and an open Humie Exhibition.
Publications update
Wolfgang Banzhaf, editor of Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, reports that the journal is in its seventh year and going strong by recent measures of downloads.
Marc Schoenauer, editor of Evolutionary Computation, reports that MIT Press is looking at the subscription number reduction with some concern. Marc reports progress in reducing the delay between submission and publication.
Marc Schoenauer, editor of Evolutionary Computation, reports that MIT Press is looking at the subscription number reduction with some concern. Marc reports progress in reducing the delay between submission and publication.
SIGEVO bylaws
Erik Goodman is explaining that the executive board will be expanded from 15 to 18, that elections will be held every other year (from every year), and that the first election will elect 9 people to the board. Subsequently, 6 members will be elected at each election. Una-May O'Reilly is heading a nominating committee. A chair, vice-chair, secretary, and treasurer will be elected every two years by the executive board.
Erik has just surprised Pier Luca Lanzi by calling him to the podium. The 3rd issue will come out in September and will be devoted to a GECCO wrap-up.
Erik has just surprised Pier Luca Lanzi by calling him to the podium. The 3rd issue will come out in September and will be devoted to a GECCO wrap-up.
Status of SIGEVO
Erik Goodman is reporting on the status of SIGEVO (www.acm.org/sigevo). In fall 2004, the ISGEC board approved transition to SIG status and on January 1, 2005, SIGEVO started life as a transitional SIG for its first year of operation. On June 15, 2006, ACM approved SIGEVO as a regular SIG.
There are currently 506 members, and we have now had two editions of our newsletter SIGEVOlution (Pier Luca Lanzi, editor and IlliGAL affilliate). 2006 marks the 21st year of genetic algorithms conferences (going back to the first ICGA in 1985 at MIT).
Erik just awarded a placque to Mike Cattalico (GECCO-2006 chair) and is thanking the cast of thousands that made GECCO possible.
There are currently 506 members, and we have now had two editions of our newsletter SIGEVOlution (Pier Luca Lanzi, editor and IlliGAL affilliate). 2006 marks the 21st year of genetic algorithms conferences (going back to the first ICGA in 1985 at MIT).
Erik just awarded a placque to Mike Cattalico (GECCO-2006 chair) and is thanking the cast of thousands that made GECCO possible.
2006 Humie winners announced
The Human Competitive Results competition (see here) results were announced at ACM SIGEVO's GECCO-2006.
Bronze:
Jie Yao, Nawwaf Kharma, Peter Grogono, A multi-population genetic algorithm for robust and fast ellipse detection
Gustavo Olague, Leonardo Trujillo, Using Evolution to Learn How to Perform Interest Point Detection
Silver:
Kumara Sastry, Duane D. Johnson, Alexis L. Thompson, David E. Goldberg, Todd J. Martinez, Jeff Leiding, Jane Owens
Multiobjective Genetic Algorithms for Multiscaling Excited-State Direct Dynamics in Photochemistry
Gold: Varun Aggarwal, Selçuk KILINÇ, Varun Jain, Uğur ÇAM, Catalogue of Variable Frequency and Single-Resistance-Controlled Oscillators Employing A Single Differential Difference Complementary Current Conveyor
Bronze:
Jie Yao, Nawwaf Kharma, Peter Grogono, A multi-population genetic algorithm for robust and fast ellipse detection
Gustavo Olague, Leonardo Trujillo, Using Evolution to Learn How to Perform Interest Point Detection
Silver:
Kumara Sastry, Duane D. Johnson, Alexis L. Thompson, David E. Goldberg, Todd J. Martinez, Jeff Leiding, Jane Owens
Multiobjective Genetic Algorithms for Multiscaling Excited-State Direct Dynamics in Photochemistry
Gold: Varun Aggarwal, Selçuk KILINÇ, Varun Jain, Uğur ÇAM, Catalogue of Variable Frequency and Single-Resistance-Controlled Oscillators Employing A Single Differential Difference Complementary Current Conveyor
Live blogging: SIGEVO biz meeting
It's the last day of GECCO-2006 here in Seattle and I'm blogging live from the ACM SIGEVO business meeting. Chairman Erik Goodman is at the podium and we should soon hear the wrap up of this year's conference, the get a prospectus for next year's conference, and learn the winners of the best papers awards and the Humies
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
GECCO 2006: Representations in LCS
James Marshall presented and interested result about evolving multiple representations in XCS. Pier Luca Lanzi is now going a an interesting new condition scheme proposed by Stewart Wilson based on convex hulls.
Anil Menon
Once genetic algorithm researcher Anil Menon is now a writer of fiction. See an blog interview with him at Duck of Destiny (here).
Of mice, genes, and brains
The 2nd keynote talk at GECCO-2006 is Mapping and Mining the Allen Brain Atlas by Dr. Mike Hawrylycz, Director of Informatics at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Gene markers are used to map gene expression in the slices of mouse brains. See www.brain-map.org for more information.
Monday, July 10, 2006
GECCO 2006: Pier Luca Lanzi and Kumara Sastry open fire
Sometimes is sunny, sometimes is rainy. Unfortunately, Pier Luca and Kumara are presenting right now at the same time, and I cannot split in two. Pier Luca is going over an interesting work on computed predictions for XCS. Kumara is presenting his work “Multiobjective genetic algorithms for multiscaling excited state direct dynamics in photochemistry”; the paper is nominated for best paper on the real-world application track, and is a must-read one.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
IWLCS 2006: In the heat of the discussion
We are having a discussion session about what, where, and when next? The question that sparked the fire: "Is reinforcement learning the enemy?".
I think therefore I am (an engineer)
IWLCS and the Soccer World Cup Final
Planning is useful. Planning sometimes works. Others, it is just a guarantee that things won’t happen that way. IWLCS timetable is one of these won’t-happen cases. The presentations are being dynamically reordered based on people's need to watch the Soccer World Cup final.
Pier Luca on computed predictions
Pier Luca Lanzi is giving a nice talk about computed predictions in classisifer systems. at the LCS workshop.
Only a game
I'm sitting in the LCS workshop at GECCO-2006 in the Renaissance Seattle Hotel in beautiful downtown Seattle. Xavier Llora is announcing program changes to allow Pier Luca Lanzi and other Italians to watch the World Cup finals between France and Italy.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
GECCO 2006: First pleasent surprise
I had my first pleasant surprise today at GECCO. I am sitting in the Workshop on Medical Applications of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (MedGEC 2006). The workshop contains up to four different papers related to LCS and other GBML topics for medical domains. This is 4 out 6! :D
Friday, July 07, 2006
Has engineering lost its mojo?
Thursday, July 06, 2006
LCS and other GBML warming up for GECCO 2006
The agenda for the Ninth International Workshop on Learning Classifier Systems (IWLCS’2006) can be found here. The workshop is coming with a list of very interesting papers and topics. We are looking forward to another edition of the workshop crowded of new and exiting ideas. If you are in GECCO, do not let it pass by ;).
By the way, if you want to did a little further into the learning classifier systems (LCS) and other genetics-based machine learning (GBML) world, check the website of the NCSA/IlliGAL Gathering on Evolutionary Learning (NIGEL’2006). It contains the slides and videos of the talks on cutting-edge LCS and GBML research. It is just fresh out of the oven!
By the way, if you want to did a little further into the learning classifier systems (LCS) and other genetics-based machine learning (GBML) world, check the website of the NCSA/IlliGAL Gathering on Evolutionary Learning (NIGEL’2006). It contains the slides and videos of the talks on cutting-edge LCS and GBML research. It is just fresh out of the oven!
Monday, July 03, 2006
A philosophical summer
Read about my philosophical summer of reading and viewing at TEE here.
3 IlliGAL Members or Alums vying for 2006 Humie
Koza's Human Competitive Machine Intelligence Competition (The Humies) has 8 applicants vying for $10,000 in prize money (see here). Two of the entries have ties to IlliGAL. Kalyan Deb's entry (with Aravind Srinivasan) is entitled Innovization: Innovating design principles through optimization, and Kumara Sastry heads up a 7-person UIUC team concerned with Multiobjective Genetic Algorithms for Multiscaling Excited-State Direct Dynamics in Photochemistry. Best of luck to all contestants, but the judges need to understand that I have a kid going to Northwestern University next year.
SIGEVO a real ACM SIG
One of the many things to be celebrated at this year's GECCO is SIGEVO receiving designation as a full-fledged SIG. The status over the last year has been as a provisional SIG, but with the publication of the newsletter, and the holding of two GECCO's under ACM supervision, the training wheels have come off.
Less than a week until GECCO in Seattle
News from GECCO command is good. Registration is strong, and Saturday begins what promises to be a terrific conference. GECCO-2007 is tentatively set for July in London, the first time GECCO will leave the US. We like our lizard versus the insurance company's anyday (compare here and here)
