Subject: ANTS'98 - From Ant Colonies to Artificial Ants: First International
From: Marco DORIGO <mdorigo@ulb.ac.be>
To: elsnet-list@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
 Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 14:37:48 +0100

We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.

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


ANTS'98 - From Ant Colonies to Artificial Ants: First International
Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization

Brussels, Belgium, October 15-16, 1998

CALL FOR EXTENDED ABSTRACTS (version of the Feb 15, 1998: up-to-date
information on the workshop can be found at
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants98/ants98.html)

SCOPE OF THE WORKSHOP

The behavior of ant colonies and how they coordinate complex activities
like foraging and nest building has since long time fascinated researchers
in ethology and animal behavior, who have proposed many models to explain
these capabilities.
Recently, algorithms taking inspiration from the behavior of real ant
colonies have been applied to solve many types of optimization problems.
This new approach to distributed optimization is known as "Ant Colony
Optimization".
Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) has been applied successfully to a large
number of difficult combinatorial problems like the quadratic assignment
and the traveling salesman problems, to routing in telecommunications
networks, to clustering and sorting problems, etc.
ANTS'98 is the first event entirely devoted to Ant Colony Optimization and
more in general to algorithms inspired by the observation of ant colonies
behavior.
Also of great interest to the workshop are models of ant colonies behavior
which could stimulate new algorithmic approaches.
The aims are to give researchers in both real ants behavior and in ant
colony optimization an opportunity to meet, to present their latest
research, and to discuss current developments and applications.
The two-day event will be held in Brussels, Belgium, from October 15 to
October 16, 1998. In the evening of October 14 there will be a tutorial on
ant colony optimization.

RELEVANT RESEARCH AREAS

Submissions are invited that describe: (1) Models of aspects of real ant
colonies behavior, (2) Empirical and theoretical research in Ant Colony
Optimization. Submissions that describe the application of Ant Colony
Optimization methods to real-world problems are encouraged.

SUBMISSION OF EXTENDED ABSTRACTS

Format: Extended abstracts should be of approximately 3 pages plus one
title page (4 pages all together). All accepted abstracts will be presented
at the workshop. All attendees will receive a copy of all abstracts that
are accepted for presentation at the conference.
The title page must contain the title of the paper, the names and addresses
of all authors, and the full address of the first author (or the contact
person), including phone, fax and e-mail.
An electronic version (compressed PostScript) of the title page plus
extended abstract, and an electronic version of the title page only (plain
ASCII), should be emailed by May 31, 1998 to ants98@iridia.ulb.ac.be.
Only if electronic submission is not possible, then authors can send four
hard copies of the extended abstract to the Program Chair.

REGISTRATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION

Up-to-date information about the workshop will be made available at the
ANTS'98 web site (http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants98/ants98.html). For
information about local arrangements, registration forms, etc., please
refer to the above mentioned web site, or contact the local organizer at
the address below.
A registration fee of BF 6,500 will cover local organization expenses,
coffee breaks, and a social dinner on the Thursday 15 evening.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline               31 May 1998
Notification of acceptance        15 Jul 1998
Camera ready copy of abstract      1 Sep 1998
Workshop                       15-16 Oct 1998

ANTS'98 CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

PROGRAM CHAIR AND LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS

Marco DORIGO, IRIDIA, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Emile AARTS            (Philips Research Labs, Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Hugues BERSINI         (IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium)
Eric BONABEAU          (Santa Fe Institute, NM)
Endre BOROS            (RUTCOR, State University of New Jersey, NJ)
Alberto COLORNI        (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
Jean-Louis DENEUBOURG  (Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Gianni DI CARO         (IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium)
Marco DORIGO           (IRIDIA, ULB, Belgium)
David FOGEL            (Natural Selection, La Jolla, CA)
Luca M. GAMBARDELLA    (IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland)
Deborah GORDON         (Stanford University, CA)
Alan HERTZ             (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland)
Tad HOGG               (Xerox, Palo Alto, CA)
Owen HOLLAND           (University of West England, Bristol, UK)
Vittorio MANIEZZO      (Universita' di Bologna, Italy)
Katsunori SHIMOHARA    (ATR & NTT, Kyoto, Japan)
Dominique SNYERS       (ENST de Bretagne, Brest, France)
Thomas STUETZLE        (Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany)
Eric TAILLARD          (IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland)
Gilles VENTURINI       (Universite' de Tours, France)
Chris WINTER           (British Telecom, UK)

SUBMISSIONS ADDRESS

Extended abstracts should be emailed to: ants98@iridia.ulb.ac.be

PROGRAM CHAIR ADDRESS

Marco Dorigo, Ph.D.
Chercheur Qualifie' du FNRS         Tel +32-2-6503169
IRIDIA CP 194/6                     Fax +32-2-6502715
Universite' Libre de Bruxelles      Secretary +32-2-6502729
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50        http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/dorigo/dorigo.html
1050 Bruxelles                      http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants98/ants98.html
Belgium                             http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/dorigo/ACO/ACO.html

CONFERENCE LOCATION

Avenue A. Buyl 87
Building C - 4th floor (IRIDIA, Dorigo's lab, is at the 5th floor of the
same building).
There will be arrows and indications to the workshop room.

LIMITED NUMBER OF PLACES

The number of participants will be limited. If you intend to participate
please fill in and send the intention form available at the workshop web
page, or drop a line to ants98@iridia.ulb.ac.be.