Genetic Algorithms Digest Thursday, August 27, 1998 Volume 12 : Issue 12 - Do NOT send email or reply to gadistr@aic.nrl.navy.mil (GA List Moderator) - Send submissions (articles) to GA-List@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL - Send administrative (subscribe, unsubscribe, change of address, etc.,) requests to GA-List-Request@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL ****************************************************************************** - You can access back issues, GA code, conference announcements, etc., either through the WWW at URL http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/galist/ or through anonymous ftp at ftp.aic.nrl.navy.mil [132.250.84.25] in /pub/galist. ****************************************************************************** Today's Topics: - PhD student jobs in Switzerland - Free EuroGP proceedings till 30 Sept 98 - Re: Free EuroGP proceedings till 30 Sept 98 - Book Announcement (Evolutionary Electronics) - Further info. - Evolutionary Electronics Book - GECCO Call for Papers - PPSN-V Call for Participation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CALENDAR OF GA-RELATED ACTIVITIES: (with GA-List issue reference) EUFIT98 6th Eur Cong on Intel Tech and Soft Comp,Aachen (v12n6) Sep 7-10, 98 ICC&IE Int Computers and Indust Engin, Uxbridge, UK (v11n45) Sep 9-11, 98 FLINS Fuzzy Logic & Intl Tech for Nucl Sci, Antwerp (v11n40) Sep 14-16, 98 NC98 Intl ICSC/IFAC Symposium on Neural Comp, Vienna (v11n35) Sep 23-25, 98 FOGA98 Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, Amsterdam (v11n29) Sep 24-26, 98 ICES98 Intl Conf on Evolvable Systems, Lausanne, Switz (v11n11) Sep 24-26, 98 PPSN98 Parallel Prob Solving from Nature, Amsterdam (v11n16) Sep 27-Oct 1, 98 ANTS98 1st Intl Wkshp on Ant Colony Opt, Brussels (v12n3) Oct 15-16, 98 IZUKA98 5th Intl Conf on Soft Computing, Japan (v12n10) Oct 16-20, 98 First Asia-Pacific Workshop on GAs and Applicat, China (v12n1) Oct 18-20, 98 FEA98 Frontiers in EAs, Research Triangle Park, NC (v12n2) Oct 23-28, 98 ANNIE98 Artificial Neural Networks in Engineering (v12n4) Nov 1-4, 98 SEAL98 2nd Asia-Pacif Conf on Sim Evo & Learn, Austral (v12n1) Nov 24-27, 98 ICTACEM Theoret, Appl, Comp, and Exper Mech, Kharagpur (v11n43) Dec 1-5, 98 LOFT3 Logic and Found of Theory of Games, Torino (v11n39) Dec 17-20, 98 Intl Conf on Evol Computation in Engin, Chennai, India (v12n1) Jan 6-9, 99 CF99 Computational Finance, New York, NY (v12n10) Jan 7-8, 99 CIMCA99 Comp Intell for Mod Cont and Aut, Vienna, Aust (v12n10) Feb 17-19, 99 SAC99 14th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (v12n7) Feb 28-Mar 2, 99 CIMAF99 Symposium on Artificial Intelligence (v12n5) Mar 22-26, 99 SPIE Applications and Sci of Comp Intell, Orlando, FL (v12n10) Apr 5-9, 99 SOCO99 Soft Computing, Genova, Italy (v12n8) Jun 1-4, 99 CEC99 Congress on Evol Computation, Washington, DC (v12n9) Jul 6-9, 99 GECCO Genetic & Evol Computation Conf, Orlando, FL (v12n8) Jul 13-17, 99 Send announcements of other activities to GA-List@aic.nrl.navy.mil. ------------------------------ From: juergen@idsia.ch (Juergen Schmidhuber) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 18:30:16 +0200 Subject: PhD student jobs in Switzerland ******** ETH Zurich and IDSIA in Lugano (Switzerland) ******* PhD student positions We are seeking two outstanding PhD candidates for an exciting research project that combines machine learning (reinforcement learning, evolutionary computation, neural nets) and computational fluid dynamics. We intend to tackle problems such as drag minimisation, noise control, etc, using innovative control devices such as synthetic actuators, active skins, etc. This is a joint project of the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at ETH Zurich and the machine learning research institute IDSIA in Lugano (IDSIA ranked among the world's top ten AI labs in the 1997 "X-Lab Survey" by Business Week Magazine). Both are located in Switzerland, origin of the WWW and country with highest citation impact factor as well as most Nobel prizes and supercomputing capacity per capita. We will maintain very active links to Fluid Dynamics and AI institutes at Stanford University and NASA Ames Research Center. We offer an attractive Swiss PhD student salary. Highly qualified candidates are sought with a background in computational sciences, engineering, mathematics, physics or other relevant areas. Applicants should submit : (i) Detailed curriculum vitae, (ii) List of three references (and their email addresses), (ii) Transcripts of undergraduate and graduate (if applicable) studies and (iii) Concise statement of their research interests (two pages max). Candidates are also encouraged to submit their scores in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) general test (if available). Please send all documents to: Petros Koumoutsakos, Institute for Fluid Dynamics ETH Zentrum, CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland www.ifd.mavt.ethz.ch OR Juergen Schmidhuber IDSIA, Corso Elvezia 36, 6900-Lugano, Switzerland www.idsia.ch Applications (with WWW pointers to studies or papers, if available) can also be submitted electronically (in plain ASCII or postscript format) to petros@ifd.mavt.ethz.ch or juergen@idsia.ch Petros & Juergen ------------------------------ From: Bill Langdon Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 09:33:17 +0100 Subject: Free EuroGP proceedings till 30 Sept 98 The proceedings of the first european workshop on genetic programming, EuroGP'98, Paris, April 1998, have been published by Springer as Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 1391. See http://link.springer.de/link/service/series/0558/tocs/t1391.htm email orders@springer.de Until 30 September 1998 all acticles can be down loaded from this page for free. Information on the late breaking papers can be found at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~wbl/eurogp98_lbp.html The next European workshop, EuroGP-99 will be held in Goteborg, Sweeden. Details will be posted later at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rmp/eebic/eurogp99 Bill W. B. Langdon, Phone +44 121-414-4791 School of Computer Science, Fax +44 121-414-4281 University of Birmingham, Birmingham. B15 2TT United Kingdom http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~wbl/ ------------------------------ From: Riccardo Poli Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 17:40:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: Re: Free EuroGP proceedings till 30 Sept 98 Lawrence A. Janowitch wrote: > I have attempted to download several of these papers and they > appear to be password protected, therefore unavailable. Password and user ID are given at the beginning of the Web page mentioned above. They are: User ID: lncs Password: lncsfree I think you will be required to provide them only for the first paper you retrieve. Best regards, Riccardo -- Dr. Riccardo Poli School of Computer Science The University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK E-mail: R.Poli@cs.bham.ac.uk WWW: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rmp/ Telephone: +44-121-414-3739 Fax: +44-121-414-4281 ------------------------------ From: "Adrian Thompson" Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 02:49:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: Book Announcement (Evolutionary Electronics) Book Announcement: Hardware Evolution: Automatic Design of Electronic Circuits in Reconfigurable Hardware by Artificial Evolution. Adrian Thompson, University of Sussex, UK. http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/ Summary ^^^^^^^ In reconfigurable hardware, the behaviours and interconnections of the constituent electronic primitives can be repeatedly changed. Artificial evolution can automatically derive a configuration causing the system to exhibit a pre-specified desired behaviour. A circuit's evolutionary fitness is given according to its behaviour when physically instantiated as a hardware configuration: `intrinsic' hardware evolution. There is no distinction between design and implementation, nor are design abstractions used: evolution proceeds by taking account of changes in the overall physical behaviour of the system when variations are made to its internal structure. This contrasts with top-down design methodologies, where hardware details are mainly considered only in the final stages. It would be infeasible for conventional methods to consider all of the semiconductor physics of the components and their interactions at all stages of the design process, but this is the essence of intrinsic hardware evolution. After removing the constraints on circuit structure and dynamics normally needed to permit design abstractions, evolution explores beyond the scope of conventional design into the entire repertoire of behaviours that the physical hardware can manifest. A series of experiments is used to explore the practicalities, culminating in a simple but non-trivial application. The circuits may seem bizarre, but are highly efficient in their use of silicon. The experiments include the first intrinsically evolved hardware for robot control, and the first intrinsic evolution of the configuration of a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). There is great potential for real-world applications: some hurdles remain, but a promising solution is proposed. It is also shown that effects arising from evolutionary population dynamics can exert an influence towards compact circuits, or give some degree of fault-tolerance. Additionally, fault-tolerance requirements can be incorporated into fitness criteria. Evolved fault-tolerance is integrated into the way the system operates, rather than explicitly relying on spare parts (redundancy). Ordering Information ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Springer-Verlag, 1988. Distinguished Dissertations Series ISBN 3-540-76253-1 http://www.springer.co.uk/comp/books/distinguished.html email: postmaster@svl.co.uk ------------------------------ From: "Adrian Thompson" Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 00:51:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: Further info. - Evolutionary Electronics Book I recently posted the summary of my book `Hardware Evolution' to GA-list and to some Usenet groups. This provoked a vexing debate on Usenet about whether the language was `obfuscated' or not. To pre-empt similar correspondence on GA-list, I should explain that this is my PhD thesis, selected by the British Computer Society (BCS) to be published unchanged by Springer. So the summary is dense because it's my thesis abstract - the whole book isn't like that! Readability was one of the BCS selection criteria. Below is the more reader-friendly back-cover text. Thanks for your time. BACK-COVER: `Hardware Evolution' describes the use of computer simulations of Darwinian Evolution as a way of designing electronic circuits automatically. Amidst increasing interest from academic and industrial communities, researchers are just beginning to map out the exciting possibilities and practicalities of the idea. In this book, Adrian Thompson concentrates on the fundamentals - what sort of thing can an evolved circuit be? Through a sequence of arguments and experiments, it is shown that evolution can produce `bizarre but useful' circuits, beyond the scope of conventional design. The experiments (the first of their kind) apply evolution to a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip, and show the promise of significant real-world engineering applications. Adrian Thompson, http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/ ------------------------------ From gecco@illigal.ge.uiuc.edu Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:53:33 -0500 Subject: GECCO Call for Papers Dear Colleagues: I invite you to what promises to be a signal event in the development of the field of genetic and evolutionary computation (GEC), namely the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) to be held 14-17 July, 1999 in Orlando, Florida at the Omni Rosen Hotel. I have attached a call for papers and participation, and as you can see, the conference embodies the best of its constituent and cooperating conferences and workshops. After adjusting for overlap, we conservatively expect the attendance at GECCO to make it the largest single GEC event ever held, but we have made no compromises with quality or intimacy. Many of the best names in the field have signed onto six autonomous program policy committees ("demes"). Hundreds of the field's most recent and best authors have signed up to review the large number of submissions expected, but as you will read below, extraordinary steps have been taken to respect the norms of traditional and emerging areas, both. A full slate of regular conference features together with over 21 free tutorials, bird-of-a-feather workshops, a special graduate student workshop, late-breaking papers, and guests and invited speakers make this a special event you will not want to miss. But a great conference is built first and foremost with great papers. Therefore, I urge you to mark the date Wednesday, January 27, 1999 on your calendar. This is the submission deadline for GECCO, and I hope you will consider sending us your latest and best results. Thank you, and I look hope to see you in Orlando. Sincerely, Dave Goldberg Chair, GECCO-99 GECCO-99 Call for Papers and Participation 1999 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/gecco/ 14-17 July, 1999 Omni Rosen Hotel, Orlando, Florida USA A Joint Meeting of the Eighth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA-99) and the Fourth Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP-99) The 1999 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-99) combines the longest running conference in evolutionary computation (ICGA) and the world's two largest GEC conferences (GP and ICGA) to create a unique opportunity to bring together the best in research in the growing field of genetic and evolutionary computation (GEC). Each paper submitted to the GECCO conference will be peer-reviewed by one of the six independent program committees specializing in various aspects of genetic and evolutionary computation. Each program committee consists of a chair and policy members who are active researchers of published books and papers in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation. Each program policy committee establishes its own review criteria and policies and make the final decisions concerning papers submitted to it. These independent "demes" will help ensure that the review process respects the diverse traditions and norms of the various facets of genetic and evolutionary computation at the same time it guarantees the acceptance of work of the highest caliber. In addition, work that runs across the boundaries of two or more demes is also encouraged. The editor-in-chief will assign qualified reviewers for papers that combine the methods of different demes, or for papers that do not fit nicely in one of these categories (e.g., papers that pertain to GEC method, philosophy, or pedagogy). Mark your calendars now for what promises to be the largest, high-quality GEC event ever held. GENERAL CHAIR: David E. Goldberg, University of Illinois, deg@uiuc.edu PROGRAM CHAIRS & POLICY COMMITTEES: Evolution Strategies/Evolutionary Programming (ES/EP). A. E. Eiben (ES/EP Editor & Chair ES/EP Committee), Leiden University, gusz@wi.leidenuniv.nl. Program Policy Committee: Thomas Baeck, Hans-Georg Beyer, Michael Conrad, Ingo Rechenberg, Guenter Rudolph, Hans-Michael Voigt. Genetic Algorithms/Classifier Systems (GA/CS). Robert E. Smith (GA/CS Editor & Chair GA/CS Committee), University of Alabama (on sabbatical at the University of West England), rsmith@btc.uwe.ac.uk. Program Policy Committee: Bir Bhanu, Bill P. Buckles, Runwei Cheng, Marco Colombetti, Yuval Davidor, Herbert Dawid, Marco Dorigo, Emanuel Falkenauer, Mitsuo Gen, Randy L. Haupt, Sue Ellen Haupt, John H. Holland, Kim F. Man, Dirk C. Mattfeld, Zbigniew Michalewicz, Melanie Mitchell, K. S. Tang, Michael D. Vose. Genetic Programming/Evolvable Hardware (GP/EH). Wolfgang Banzhaf (Proceedings Editor-in-Chief , GP/EH Editor, & Chair GP/EH Committee), University of Dortmund, banzhaf@LS11.informatik.uni-dortmund.de. Program Policy Committee: David Andre, Vladan Babovic, Forrest H Bennett III, Tobias Blickle, Dimitris C. Dracopoulos, Frank D. Francone, Andreas Geyer-Schulz, Wolfgang A. Halang, Hitoshi Iba, Christian Jacob, Martin Keane, Robert E. Keller, John R. Koza, Sam Kwong,W. B. Langdon, Peter Nordin, Thomas S. Ray, Moshe Sipper. Artificial Life, Adaptive Behavior, and Agents (AAA). Vasant Honavar (Editor & Chair AAA Committee) Iowa State University, honavar@cs.iastate.edu. Program Policy Committee: Christoph Adami, Randall D. Beer, Richard K. Belew, Stan Franklin, Thomas S. Ray, Sandip Sen, Stewart W. Wilson. DNA and Molecular Computing (DNA/MC). Max H. Garzon, (Editor & Chair DNA/MC Committee), University of Memphis, mgarzon@memphis.edu. Program Policy Committee: Michael Conrad, Russell Deaton, Masami Hagiya, Stephen Karl, Giancarlo Mauri, Grzegorz Rozenberg. Real-World Applications & Software (RWAS). Mark Jakiela, (Chair & Editor RWAS Committee),Washington University (St. Louis), mjj@mecf.wustl.edu. Program Policy Committee: L. Davis, Terrence Fogarty, Bill Fulkerson, Vasant Honavar, David Leinweber, Frieder Lohnert, E. Michielssen, David Montana, David Noever, David Powell, Nicholas Radcliffe, Peter Ross, David Schaffer, Steve Smith, Gil Syswerda, Steven A. Ward. COOPERATING ORGANIZATIONS, CONFERENCES, AND WORKSHOPS GECCO-99 is a joint meeting of the Eighth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA-99) and the Fourth Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP-99) and is held in cooperation with the European Network of Excellence in Evolutionary Computing (EvoNet), Evolution Artificielle, the International Conference on Evolvable Systems (ICES), International Society for Adaptive Behavior, International Workshop on Ant Colony Optimization (ANTS 98), Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN) Steering Committee, and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Cooperation with other conferences and organizations is welcome (contact deg@uiuc.edu). TUTORIALS (Confirmed to date) Rik Belew, Artificial Life, Adaptive Behavior, and Agents Forrest H Bennett III, Analog Circuit Design via Genetic Programming Lawrence Davis, Real World Applications of GEC Kalyanmoy Deb, Messy Genetic Algorithms and Linkage Learning Ken DeJong, GEC: Comparing and Contrasting the Different Methodologies Marco Dorigo, Introduction to Ant Colony Optimization Stephanie Forrest, Immune System Modeling and Computation Max Garzon & Randy C. Murphy, Introduction to DNA Computing Tetsuya Higuchi, Evolvable Hardware John R. Koza, Introduction to Genetic Programming W. B. Langdon, Genetic Programming Data Structures Jean-Arcady Meyer, Introduction to Adaptive Behavior Peter Nordin, Machine Code Genetic Programming I. C. Parmee, Genetic and Evolutionary Computation in Design Guenter Rudolph, Theory of Evolution Strategies and Programming Hans-Paul Schwefel, Introduction to Evolution Strategies Lee Spector, Quantum Computation Leigh Tesfatsion & David McFadzean, Agent-Based Computational Economics Michael Vose, Genetic Algorithm Theory Darrell Whitley, Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks Stewart Wilson, Classifier Systems BUSINESS COMMITTEE David E. Goldberg,University of Illinois, deg@uiuc.edu John R. Koza, Stanford University, koza@cs.stanford.edu PRE-CONFERENCE GRADUATE STUDENT WORKSHOP Graduate students working on GEC dissertations will be given the opportunity to submit their work for presentation at a workshop on Tuesday, July 13, 1999. Contact Una-May O-Reilly (unamay@ai.mit.edu), MIT AI Lab, Graduate Student Workshop Chair, for information. BIRD-OF-A-FEATHER WORKSHOPS Thematic workshops on a variety of topics will be held during the conference. Annie Wu (aswu@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil), Naval Research Laboratory AI Center, will chair the workshops and is seeking proposals for workshop topics. SUBMITTING PAPERS The deadline for arrival at the physical address of the AAAI of eight (8) paper copies of each submitted paper is Wednesday, January 27, 1999. Papers are to be in single-space, 10-point type on 8 1/2" x 11" paper with 1" margin at the top and 3/4" margin at left, right, and bottom. A4 paper may be used. Papers may not be submitted by e-mail or fax. Each paper is to contain all of the following 9 items, contained entirely within a maximum total of eight (8) pages, IN THIS ORDER: (1) the paper's category (chosen from one of the following alternatives: genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolvable hardware, classifier systems, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, DNA and molecular computing, real-world applications, software, artificial life, adaptive behavior, agents, education, methodology, and philosophy), (2) title of paper, (3) author name(s), (4) author physical address(es), (5) author e-mail address(es), (6) author phone number(s), (7) a 50-200 word abstract of the paper at the beginning of the paper, (8) the text of the paper (including all figures, tables, acknowledgments, and appendices, if any), and (9) bibliography. Review criteria will include significance of the work, novelty, clarity, writing quality, and sufficiency of information to permit replication (if applicable). The first-named author (or other corresponding author designated by the authors at the time of submission) will be notified of acceptance or rejection (on approximately March 3, 1999). To avoid future problems and misunderstandings, it is preferred (but not required) that the format of submitted papers roughly follow the required format for final camera-ready papers. The required style for the final camera-ready papers will be posted on the GECCO WWW page (and will be substantially similar to that of the ICGA-97 and GP-98 conferences). Different numbers of pages may be allocated to accepted papers based on the policies of the various separate program committees of the conference. The deadline for final camera-ready version of accepted papers will be announced (and will be approximately April 7, 1999). There will be two volumes for the conference proceedings books. By submitting a paper, the author(s) agree that, if their paper is accepted they will submit a final revised camera-ready version and that at least one author will attend and present each accepted paper at the conference. The material in papers must represent substantially new work that has not been previously published by conferences, journals, or edited books in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation. GECCO permits a paper to be submitted to the GECCO conference that is substantially similar to a paper being contemporaneously submitted for review to another conference; however, by submitting a camera-ready final paper to the GECCO conference, the authors agree that substantially the same material will not be published by another conference in the field (however, material may conceivably be later revised and submitted to an EC journal or material may be submitted to a non-GEC conference, such as an applications conference). ORLANDO AND HOTEL INFORMATION Orlando is served by a major international airport and features numerous tourist attractions, including Disney World, EPCOT Center, Sea World Orlando, Universal Studios, and much more. For further information about Orlando or Central Florida click http://www.cfdc.org/tourism or http://www.goflorida.com/orlando. The GECCO conference will be held at the Omni Rosen Hotel in Orlando. Special rates for GECCO attendees are available by contacting the hotel directly: Omni Rosen Hotel 9480 International Drive Orlando, FL 32819 800-204-7234 407-354-9840 Fax: 407-351-2659 WWW: http://www.omnirosen.com/ A CO-LOCATED CONFERENCE AAAI-99 starts Sunday, July 18, 1999 in Orlando at the Omni Rosen Hotel. A number of cooperative activities are being planned between the two conferences. More information will be available on the GECCO web site as it becomes available. ADMINISTRATION The conference is administered by the conference staff of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA. Phone: 650-328-3123. FAX: 650-321-4457. E-MAIL: gecco@aaai.org. OPERATION The conference is operated by the International Society for Genetic Algorithms, Inc., a Massachusetts not-for-profit corporation and Genetic Programming Conferences Inc., a California not-for-profit corporation. SUPPORT The conference is supported with a major contribution from i2 Technologies, a leader in the use of genetic and evolutionary computation. For career opportunities see www.i2.com. Support has also been received from First Quadrant, L. P. (www.firstquadrant.com) and from Philips Laboratories, Philips North America Corporation (www.research.philips.com). IMPORTANT DATES January 27, 1999 Paper submission March 3. 1999 Notification of acceptance (tentative date) April 7, 1999 Camera-ready version due (tentative date) July 13, 1999 Graduate student workshop July 14-17, 1999 GECCO-99 MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR GECCO-99 http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/gecco/ ------------------------------ From: Terry Fogarty Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 12:17:03 +0100 Subject: PPSN-V Call for Participation CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Fifth International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature PPSN-V Amsterdam, The Netherlands 27-30 September 1998 http://www.wi.leidenuniv.nl/CS/ALP/ppsn98.html The scientific content of the PPSN conference focuses on the topic of problem solving paradigms gleaned from natural models, including (but not limited to) organic evolution, neural network based learning processes, immune systems, life and its properties in general, DNA strands, chemical and physical processes. PPSN-V will be held between 27-30 September 1998 in the Golden Tulip Barbizon Palace Hotel, in the very heart of Amsterdam. On the first day of the conference, September 27th (Sunday), eight tutorials will be given by well-known experts in evolutionary computation and related fields. The technical sessions will be held on 28, 29 and 30 September. Each day starts with an oral presentation from an invited speaker addressing hot topics in the context of evolutionary computation. The technical sessions contain 100 contributions which were selected from 185 papers submitted to the conference organizers. PPSN-V adjoins the Foundations of Genetic Algorithms 5 Workshop on Theoretical Aspects of Evolutionary Computation (FOGA 5), held in Leiden, the Netherlands, 24-26 September 1998. For registration information and the latest updates on the PPSN-V look at http://www.wi.leidenuniv.nl/CS/ALP/ppsn98.html ------------------------------ End of Genetic Algorithms Digest ******************************