Genetic and Evolutionary Computation COnference

GECCO-2005

Table of Contents

Author Index

Preface

The papers in this two volume proceedings are presented at the 7th annual Genetic and Evolutionary Computation COnference (GECCO-2005), held in Washington, D.C., June 25–29, 2005.

This year is an exceptional one for the GECCO conference series. First, the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ISGEC) which has always been GECCO’s sponsor has changed to become a Special Interest Group of the ACM named SIGEVO. Being part of ACM reflects the evolution and integration of our very successful discipline into the main stream of computer science. As a consequence, the GECCO-2005 proceedings are an ACM publication and they are incorporated into the ACM Digital Library. This guarantees an even broader dissemination of Darwinian and other nature-inspired computation methods.

Second, we had 549 regular paper submissions representing the absolute record of all conferences emphasizing the field of evolutionary computation. Paper reviewing has been done by double blind assignment. On average each paper was evaluated by five independent reviewers. Finally, 253 paper (46.1%) have been accepted as full (max. 8 pages) papers. Additionally, 120 submissions were accepted as posters.

A goal of GECCO is to encourage new areas and paradigms of evolutionary computation to gather momentum and flourish. This is accomplished by the establishment of new independent tracks each year. This year, as a result of a recombinative and creative process, GECCO-2005 comprises 16 tracks consisting of core tracks (“C”), tracks previously in GECCOs (“P”, not yet belonging to the core track family), “recombined” tracks from GECCO 2004 (“R”), and newly created tracks (“N”): 

The scientific quality of the conference as well as that of the proceedings is ensured by principles laid down in the GECCO by-laws of the former ISGEC organization (now SIGEVO):

(i) The GECCO conference shall be a broad-based conference encompassing the whole field of genetic and evolutionary computation.

(ii) Papers will be published and presented as part of the main conference proceedings only after being peer reviewed. No invited papers shall be published (except for those of up to three invited plenary speakers).

(iii) The peer review process shall be conducted consistent with the principle of division of powers performed by a multiplicity of independent program committees, each with expertise in the area of the paper being reviewed.

(iv) The determination of the policy for the peer review process for each of the conference’s independent program committees and the reviewing of papers for each program committee shall be performed by persons who occupy their positions by virtue of meeting objective and explicitly stated qualifications based on their previous scientific research activity or applications activity.

(v) Emerging areas within the field of genetic and evolutionary computation shall be actively encouraged and incorporated in the activities of the conference by providing a semi-automatic method for their inclusion into the activities of the conference (with some procedural flexibility being extended to such emerging new areas).

(vi) The percentage of submitted papers that are accepted as regular papers (i.e., papers other than one-page poster papers) shall not exceed 50%.

Even though ISGEC transitioned to SIGEVO, these principles will further guide our conference. The reader may assess how well we have met these postulates this year.

While the by-laws define the quality constraints for the conference, filling them with life must be done by the program committee, i.e., the track chairs and reviewers. The track chairs deserve special thanks for their efforts in finding reviewers, performing the paper assignments, and finally making the difficult acceptance decisions. Their work relied, however, on the volunteer work of the reviewers. Therefore, we want to express our special thanks to the numerous reviewers being the conditio sine qua non for a high-quality conference.

Enjoy reading the proceedings and have fun at the conference.

Hans-Georg Beyer, Editor-in-Chief                                        Una-May O’Reilly, Conference Chair